UNIVERSIDADE ESTADUAL DO PIAUÍ - UESPI CENTRO DE CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS E LETRAS – CCHL CURSO: LICENCIATURA PLENA EM LETRAS INGLÊS

POETRY IN ENGLISH

LANGUAGE LITERATURE

Part three

PROFA. DRA. MARIA DO SOCORRO BAPTISTA BARBOSA

JANUARY 2013

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'

Edgar Allan Poe TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNIT II: The poetry of the USA ……………………………………………………….. 3 1. American Puritanism ………………………………………………………………. 3 Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor – Francis Murphy ……………………………. 3 The Puritan Literary Attitude – Kenneth B. Murdock ……………………………….. 4 1.1. Anne Bradstreet ………………………………………………………………….. 18 1.2. Edward Taylor ……………………………………………………………………. 20 2. Enlightenment in American Poetry ………………………………………………. 22 American Enlightenment Thought – Shane J. Ralston …………………………….. 22 2.1 Philip Freneau ……………………………………………………………………… 30 2.2 Phillis Wheatley ……………………………………………………………………. 33 3. American Romanticism and Transcendentalism ……………………………….. 35 American Romanticism – Maria do Socorro Baptista Barbosa ...... 35 The American Transcendentalist Poets – Lawrence Buell ………………………… 38 3.1 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow …………………………………………………... 39 3.2 Ralph Waldo Emerson …………………………………………………………... 44 3.3 Edgar Allan Poe ………………………………………………………………….. 48 4. American Civil War ………………………………………………………………….. 52 The War between the States – American Experience ……………………………… 52 “To Light Us to Freedom and Glory Again”: The Role of Civil War Poetry – Library of Congress Poetry Resources ………………………………………………. 55 4.1 Ambrose Bierce ………………………………………………………………….. 56 4.2. William Cullen Bryant ……………………………………………………………. 58 4.3. Walt Whitman …………………………………………………………………….. 60 4.4. Emily Dickinson …………………………………………………………………... 63 References ……………………………………………………………………………… 67 3

UNIT II: The Poetry of the USA

Poetry in the USA started long before the white colonists arrived in what is now the United States of America. However, because of lack of information about the natives’ oral traditions, this material begins with Puritan Tradition in Poetry, which is totally white centered. However, as we start to discuss other periods in American Literature, other ethnics are included, such as Africans, Native-Americans, Chicanos and Asian-Americans. It is always complicated to choose which writers to include and which ones we have to leave out. I hope you enjoy the ones included here. Good reading!!

1. American Puritanism

Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor Francis Murphy LIKE most literate English people American Puritans took a great deal of pleasure in reading and writing poetry. They marked the course of history, gave thanks to public figures, learned their theology, examined their consciences, mourned the dead, honored their loved ones, celebrated the creation, and translated the Bible in a variety of poetic forms. Puritans of every occupation — schoolmasters, housewives, ship captains, and lawyers — tried their hands at making verse, although given the seventeenth-century preference for a literature that combined learning with wit it is not surprising that the educated clergyman, trained in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, was more adept at it. In his often quoted guide to young ministers (Manuductio ad Ministerium, 1726) the learned Boston divine Cotton Mather shuddered at the thought of New England clergy reading the pagan Homer ("one of the greatest apostles the devil ever had in the world"); nevertheless he had to admit that Homer's example of an invocation uttered as a "preface unto all important enterprizes" could serve as a useful model for the seminary student, and that the Latin of Virgil, especially in his Georgics, "will furnish you with many things far from despicable." Though some have had a soul so unmusical, that they have decried all verse as being but a mere playing and fiddling upon words; all versifying as if it were a more unnatural thing than if we should choose dancing instead of walking, and rhyme as if 4

it were but a sort of moresco-dancing with bells, yet I cannot wish you a soul that shall be wholly unpoetical. -1- At the same time, and with serious consequences for the kind of poetry Harvard graduates would write, Mather cautioned that while making "a little recreation of poetry in the midst of your painful studies" was a good thing, the wise student will withhold his "throat from thirst" and beware the temptation to "be always pouring on the passionate and measured pages." Above all, he warned the student reading Ovid to take care not to be sensually aroused and find himself conversing with "muses" no better "than harlots." Mather concluded his essay with an appeal for calm in the current debate between the plain and learned style, arguing that Christian gentlemen indulge one another in matters of taste and, at the same time, letting his readers know that as far as he was concerned, the real "excellency of a book will never lie in the saying of little," nor will it be more valuable because it shuns "erudition." Mather's own rather clumsy efforts at verse (his best poem was written following the death of seven young ministers), reminds us that the passionate amateur, full of good intentions but not totally committed to his craft, does not produce lines that breathe. Some Harvard students were content to copy lines from Shakespeare and Herrick in their diaries, and it was probably just as well. Fortunately, two Puritan poets took their art more seriously: Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. -2- The Puritan Literary Attitude Kenneth B. Murdock THERE is nothing in the religious literature of Puritan New England to match the richest pages of the great seventeenth-century Anglicans. It is a far cry from the poems of Herbert and Vaughan to the verses of Anne Bradstreet and the jog-trot measures of Michael Wigglesworth Day of Doom, or from the magnificence of Jeremy Taylor's prose or Donne's to the best that the colonists wrote. But this is not to say that that best had no merit. There are many flashes of poetry, many passages of eloquent prose, and, throughout, a style that rarely descends to mere tame mediocrity. The work of the best writers in colonial New England shows that they wanted to write well as one way of serving God, and reflects both their zeal and their concern for fundamental stylistic values. 5

The more this work is examined in the light of the handicaps the colonists faced and the standards they set for themselves, the more impressive it becomes. In seventy years they made Boston second only to London in the English-speaking world as a center for the publishing and marketing of books, and they produced a body of writing greater in quantity and quality than that of any other colonial community in modern history. Its merits may escape him who reads as he runs, but to the more patient it may offer fuller insight into the best qualities of the Puritan settlers and their eagerness to find an adequate literary creed for pious purposes. The study of it may encourage a valuable humility in the face of the problem of religious expression as it exists even in our own times. It is important first of all to realize that the American Puritan who wanted to be an artist in words — or, to put it more explicitly, who wanted to communicate his thoughts and emotion to others in such a way as to convince and move them-was faced by certain tangible handicaps. He was a colonist, and New England, compared to London, a wilderness. George Herbert in his quiet Wiltshire parish, John Donne in the deanery of St. Paul's, or Jeremy Taylor in the calm retirement of the Golden Grove, enjoyed advantages denied the pioneer Bostonian. They had within reach — at the most only a few days' journey away — the best libraries and the best intellectual society of which England could boast. Their place as scholars and artists was recognized; they could count on readers and hearers able to appreciate fully not only the substance of what they wrote but whatever literary skill they showed in it. They might be mystics or rationalists, high-church men or liberals, Calvinists or Arminians, and there were enough like-minded readers to welcome them. They might use the classics or the church fathers, experiment with all the devices of rhetoric, and seek out new images for their ideas, secure in the knowledge that learned readers trained in an artistic tradition would acclaim -89- their successes. But the New England colonist had no library to compare with those to be found in London; his audience, although eager, was limited in its tastes and inexperienced in literary niceties. If the colonial writer yearned for "good talk" or lively debates on literary problems he had to choose his companions from a very few, and some of those were sure to be separated from him by hours of travel on a difficult or dangerous road. He did read and he did write, but he could do so only as the exigencies of life in a pioneer community left him leisure. And even when Boston 6

grew to a town of comfortable size and colonial life became relatively easy, the learned man and — would-be artist was almost inevitably also a man whose political or religious duties engrossed much of his time. Anyone who can picture the hardships and practical complications they had to meet will be more inclined to wonder that Puritan writers wrote as much and as well as they did than to cavil at the fact that their work sometimes shows signs of crudity or haste. No great artist, however, has ever been made or marred by the purely material conditions under which he worked. Geniuses have flourished in attics and mere scribblers in great libraries. The Puritan writer had many concrete obstacles to surmount, but his stylistic practice and his successes and failures were determined not so much by the fact that the ink sometimes froze in his inkwell as he worked, or by anything else in his environment, as by the ideas he held and those he rejected. These ideas, theological and philosophic, affected more profoundly than any material circumstance what he wrote and how. To begin with, he was a Puritan — that is, an extreme Protestant. He found in Scripture no authority for vestments or "the painted texts" with which George Herbert thought the parson should adorn his church. From this the strict Puritan concluded that such things were improper, since God would have asked for them had he wished them. The fact that Catholics and high-church Anglicans alike used incense, organ music, and other means of sensuous appeal in worship was, for the Puritan, proof of their sinful neglect of Scripture. So also in literature. Catholic writing as a whole was evil; so was such Anglican literature as seemed to him unsound in doctrine. Therefore he not unreasonably linked his distrust of ideas that seemed to him unworthy of a good Protestant with a dislike for the style in which those ideas were most commonly set forth. The dislike is easy to illustrate. John Cotton, for example, while he was an Anglican at Cambridge University, was famous for brilliant sermons, "elegantly and oratoriously performed," and was "applauded by all the gallant scholars," but when he became a Puritan he chose instead to preach in a "plain, honest" style [1]. One of his Puritan biographers praises him for giving up the "florid strains" which "extremely recommended him unto the most, who relished the wisdom of words above the words of wisdom" and admired "pompous eloquence." [2] Thomas Hooker of New England is clearly referring to the Anglican preachers of the early seventeenth 7

century when he says, "I have sometime admired … why a company of Gentlemen, Yeomen, and poore women, that are scarcely able to know their A.B.C.… -90- have a Minister to speake Latine, Greeke, and Hebrew, and to use the Fathers, when it is certaine, they know nothing at all." The result is, Hooker thinks, that they "goe to hell hood-winckt, never awakened." [3] Richard Mather, another pioneer New England minister, "studiously avoided obscure phrases, Exotick Words, or an unnecessary citation of Latine Sentences, which some men addict themselves to the use of … This humble man" looked "upon the affectation of such things . . . to savour of Carnal wisdome." [4] Still another New Englander, Ebenezer Turell, writing in the eighteenth century but echoing an old refrain, says that a minister gives offense if he uses "the Jargon of Logic and Metaphysicks" or amuses his audience with foreign names "or soars above them in Flights of Poetry and Flourishes of rhetorick." [5] The references in such passages as these are clearly to common features of the style of many Anglican sermons. All this is related, of course, to the difference between the Catholic and Protestant attitudes on the use of sensuous material in religious literature. The settlers of Massachusetts Bay found little room in their scheme of things for the graphic arts, or for any art which seemed only to please the senses. As Perry Miller puts it: The Puritan lived in this world, and tried desperately not to be of it; he followed his calling, plowed his land, laid away his shillings, and endeavored to keep his mind on the future life. He looked upon the physical world as the handiwork of God, and the charms of the universe as His creations, and yet he told himself, "Get thy heart more and more weaned from the Creature, the Creature is empty, its not able to satisfie thee fully, nor make thee happy." [6]

The beauties of the physical world were all too likely to distract men's minds from religious truth or to arouse in them feelings alien to those proper for the study and worship of the divine… Anglicans and Puritans agreed about the ease with which in worship, prayer, or religious contemplation men's minds might wander away from the spiritual. Where Donne and most English churchmen differed from most Puritans was in the methods by which they tried to hold men's attention. To judge from their practice, the Anglicans and Catholics believed that one reason for using wit and rhetoric and 8

imagery and material which catered to the senses as well as to the intellect in religious writing was that such things served to control the reader's unruly mind. But the Puritan made fewer concessions to human frailty, perhaps because he was more convinced of how frail man is. He kept away from anything, however appealing, that he thought might make men's hearts stray from theological truth and self-forgetful devotion toward pleasantly sensuous reveries on this world… Still another determining influence on the Puritan artist was his reverence for the Bible. Theologically, of course, he depended on it as the one absolute authority, and in polity and doctrine fol -91- lowed it, or believed he did, to the letter. Inevitably, then, when he preached or wrote on divine themes he tended to limit his diction, his images, and his literary devices to those which he could find in Holy Writ. In subject matter too, obviously what was closest to the Bible was best. Biblical style was perfect because it was "penned by the Holy Ghost." It was a style of "great simplicitie and wonderful plainnesse," "unpolished," avoiding "the flowers of Rhetoricke," "the goodly ornaments of humane eloquence," and "wittie sharpe conceits." "If the Lord had penned ye scriptures in such an eloquent stile as would have ravished the readers with delight, we would like fooles have stood admiring at ye curious work of the casket, and never opened it to look upon the precious jewel therein contained; and have bin so much affected with the words, that in the meane time we would have neglected the matter." [7] The Puritan's rigid adherence to the literal word of God, as he understood it, would have been almost enough in itself to explain his avoidance of some material commonly used by Catholic and Anglican writers and to account for many of the standards he set for himself both in content and in style. The most immediate influence on the Puritan's literary practice, however, especially in New England, was almost certainly the character of hisaudience. Whatever his theories might have been, it would have been hopeless for him to try to act on them if the result would not have won him readers and made them understand. By and large, the strength of Puritanism, here and in the mother country, lay in the plain man, eager for knowledge, better educated than his father had been, excited by the possibilities that books seemed to hold, but still unversed in literature as such and unable to grasp either the intricate rhetoric of learned and witty sermons like those of Lancelot Andrews, or the Latin and Greek quotations, the allusions, and 9

the complicated imagery of much of the great Anglican religious literature of his time. Especially in preaching, a tradition had been built up for just such men — a tradition in which "plainnesse" was a literary virtue. Homeliness of imagery, simplicity of diction, and a constant emphasis on the values most easily recognizable by honest Englishmen of no pretensions to critical acumen characterized this style, and the influence of the audience in shaping it is patent. John Downame, an English Puritan, already quoted on the "simplicitie" and "plainnesse" of the Bible, wrote in the same passage that Holy Writ was adapted "to the capacitie of the most unlearned." [8] The Scriptures, he continued, "speak in the same manner, and injoyne the like obedience, to prince and people, rich and poore, learned and unlearned, without any difference or respect of person … and therefore … the Lord … useth a simple easie stile fit for the capacitie of all, because it was for the use of all." [9] The Puritan in New England did not believe in political democracy, but he did believe that religious teaching was a matter for all men, and he deliberately directed most of what he wrote at the whole community. Since most of his fellow colonists were relatively untutored it was clear that his style must be direct and simple enough to strike home to them. There was always St. Paul's reminder, "Except ye utter by the tongue -92- words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken?" [10] Scattered everywhere throughout Puritan literature, American and English, are reiterations of the idea that the tastes and aptitudes of simple people must be catered to in religious writing. Richard Baxter once wrote to an Anglican friend, "Had I never been a Pastor nor lived out of a College (and had met with such a taking orator) I might have thought as you do. And had you converst with as many country people as I have done, and such country-people, I think you would have thought as I do." [11] Clearly Baxter was linking "country-people" and their religious needs with Puritanism, and associating Anglicanism with the learned in colleges and those who had not "converst" with humbler folk. He seems to have been right; the extreme Puritanism of his day found its readiest audience among men who pretended to no social or intellectual eminence. Baxter's own poems, he thought, might "profit two sorts, women and vulgar christians and persons in passion and affliction." [12] He knew they would not please the wits, but as a good Puritan he was content to let them go out to help those who were unschooled in poetry but zealous in piety. Richard Mather 10

in the colonies tried in his sermons to avoid certain tricks of style which, he thought, were useless and improper "in a Popular Auditory." [13] For a variety of reasons, then, no colonial Puritan was likely to write as the Anglicans did, or to admit to his work some of the elements that gave special character to theirs. Not only did he have to contend with the conditions of life in a newly settled community, but his very Puritanism stood in the way of his accepting the aims and methods of, say, Crashaw and Donne. He suspected the "forms of art … identified with … forms of belief which" he thought false; [14] he was imbued with the Protestant distrust of the sensuous in devotion and worship; he was awe-struck by the incomprehensibility and inexpressibility of God; he was limited by his too literal reverence for the Bible; and he had always to shape his work to suit the literary capacities of a popular audience. The omens were not auspicious for art of the Anglican or Catholic variety, but the Puritan nonetheless produced a great deal of writing which, at its best, rises to a special dignity, shaped by the essential seriousness of his view of human and divine existence. In meeting his artistic problem he had not only a few special handicaps but, mercifully, some sources of aid closely related to them. Colonial conditions, for example, were less easy for the artist than the atmosphere of literary London, but there were compensations. The colonists were eager for books. As zealous Puritans they believed learning was next to godliness and hardly to be separated from it. So schools, a college, printing offices, and bookshops came to New England — all aids in their way to the writer; and whatever difficulties he faced he knew at least that if he wrote the truth in terms that his audience could understand he could count on their response. There is an ancient heresy to the effect that the Puritan was "hostile" to art and that one form of this hostility was an indifference to all matters of literary style. -93- Actually, although there is in Puritan literature little formal literary criticism, and little discussion of the aesthetic aspects of writing, there are many passages which show that the Puritan thought long and hard about the problems of prose style and tried consciously to discover for himself a system of rules for giving adequate expression to his ideas and beliefs. It is interesting and touching to see how often Puritans, when explaining why and how they wrote as they did, confess their own shortcomings as artists, judged by the conventional standards of the literary elite. 11

Even when they denounce the witty and overelaborate prose of their Catholic and Anglican contemporaries, there is sometimes a strong suggestion that they had more liking than they dared to confess, or their principles allowed them to indulge, for the literary flights which they professed to scorn. … Finally, the fact that the New England Puritan had to direct what he wrote at an audience of plain men—sailors, fishermen, farmers, and small shopkeepers — although it made it impossible for him to write as he might have for a more expert literary clientele, called on him for special qualities of style. He knew that he must express his loftiest thinking in terms which would neither cheapen it nor leave it beyond the grasp of men who knew less about philosophy and abstract speculation than about the simple verities of the struggle for shelter, warmth, and food. Thence came the Puritan's love for homely realistic phrasing; for metaphors and similes not drawn from the classics or the world of books but from the common behavior of men and the common experiences of life; for a diction that was close to daily speech, and for figures that served to illustrate and explain rather than to ornament or to please the literary sophisticate. The Puritan concentrated upon the means by which he could clothe his ideas so as to awake his readers both to feel and to understand. He worked to find words and images and figures of speech to which his readers would immediately respond. He wanted to bring the "Mysteries of God" down to the "language and dialect" of simple people [15]. Baxter said that he tried "to speak and write in the keenest manner to the common, ignorant, and ungodly People (without which keeness to them, no Sermon nor Book does much good)" and therefore liked "to speak of every Subject just as it is, and to call a Spade a Spade." [16] But for the Puritan plainness in style did not imply tameness. "The common vernacular, the English Bible and the body of forms and images which had come down" in popular preaching "from the medieval pulpit supplied to the Puritan preachers an idiom by no means barbarous, unaccustomed or lacking in vitality." [17] It was an idiom in which "Similitudes" — metaphors or similes — were commonly used "to win the hearer by … plaine and evident demonstrations" and they were, like the Biblical "Similies," taken from "persons, things, and actions" which were "knowne, easie to be conceived, and apt." [18] "The word is like an exact picture, it looks every man in the face that looks on it, if God speaks in it." [19] "A wise man -94- 12

alwayes sailes by the same Compass, though not alwayes by the same wind." [20] The homeliness of such sentences as these makes them the more effective. They draw on the simplest material, but they are vivid. Every reader of John Bunyan knows, of course, that the dramatic power of The Pilgrim's Progress, or The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, comes in large part from Bunyan's skill in colloquial diction and his adroitness in using familiar material to symbolize or allegorize the divine. In his own apology for his book, prefixed to The Pilgrim's Progress (which was reprinted in Boston 1681 and 1706), he defends "Types, Shadows, and Metaphors," pointing out that the reader of the Bible is constantly dealing with symbols, allegories, and parables. Truth, although in Swadling-clouts, I find Informs the Judgement, rectifies the Mind; Pleases the Understanding, makes the Will Submit; the Memory too it doth fill With what doth our Imagination please.[21]

Bunyan and his fellow-Puritans knew that for a plain audience the "Swadling- clouts" of homely diction and imagery were better than the rich robes of elaborate rhetoric, allusion, and adornment with which Anglican preachers charmed the witty and learned. Everywhere in Puritan literature, here or abroad, there are characteristic images. Thomas Hooker says, "Take but an Apple, there is never a man under heaven can tell what tast it is of, whether sweet or soure, until! he have tasted of it; he seeth the colour and the quantity of it, but knoweth not the fast: so there is no man under heaven discerneth more of grace then he findeth in himselfe." [22] Homeliness, of course, made for realism. The world of New England Puritan writers is one in which the sea, the forest, the field, and the village household appear vividly on every page, even those devoted to the most lofty points of doctrine. Here is another' example from Hooker: "Sweep your hearts, and clense those roomes, clense every sinke, brush downe every cobweb, and make roome for Christ . . . And when thou hast swept every corner of thy house, doe not leave the dust behind the doore, for that is a sluts tricke: doe not remove sin out of the tongue, and out of thy eye, and out of thy hand, and leave it in thy heart." [23] John Cotton wrote: And so an Huswife that takes her linning, she Sopes it, and bedawbs it, and it may be defiles it with dung, so as it neither looks nor smels wel, and when she hath done, she rubs it, and buckes it, and wrings it, and in the end all this is but to make it cleane and white; and truly so it is here, when as Tyrants most of all insult over Gods people and scoure them and lay them in 13

Lee, or Dung, so as the very name of them stinks, yet what is this but to purge them, and to make them white, and it is a great service they doe to the people of God in so doing." [24]

Hooker writes of "Meditation": Meditation is not a flourishing of a mans wit, but hath a set bout at the search of the truth, beats his brain as wee use to say, ham -95- mers out a buisiness, as the Couldsmith with his mettal, he beats it and beats it, turnes it on this side and then on that, fashions it on both that he might frame it to his mind … It's one thing in our diet to take a snatch and away, another thing to make a meal, and sit at it on purpose until wee have seen al set before us and we have taken our fil of al, so we must not cast an eye or glimpse at the truth by some sudden or fleighty apprehension, a snatch and away, but we must make a meal of musing. [Meditation is] the traversing of a mans thoughts, the coasting of the mind and imagination into every crevis and comer … Meditation lifts up the latch and goes into each room, pries into every corner of the house, and surveyes the composition and making of it, with all the blemishes in it. Look as the Searcher at the Sea-Port, or Custom-house, or Ships … unlocks every Chest, romages every corner, takes a light to discover the darkest passages … Meditation goes upon discovery, toucheth at every coast, observes every creek, maps out the dayly course of a mans conversation and disposition. [25]

The Puritan's earthy phrases and images, his restriction of his material to that supplied by the Bible or the everyday life of his audience, his seriousness of purpose, and his willingness to admit only those rhetorical devices and "similitudes" which served to drive home or to make more intelligible what he saw as the truth, were all directly related to his view of God and of man. The realism and concreteness of his work, the firmness of its structure, and its dignity of tone, all reflect the profound conviction from which it came. He had a fundamental attitude toward life which formed and unified what he wrote. He concentrated theologically on predestination, on God's choice of the elect, and on the possibility of the elect's achieving some assurance of salvation. He saw this doctrine as one which accounted for much of what he found in life and as one which, properly interpreted, gave a motive for a constant striving for righteousness. Thence came a great concentration on the individual's walk with God. That was not a passive process; it was a struggle, worthy of a warrior. Life was for the Puritan an 14

epic — an epic of ordinary men, who sought by fulfilling their part of a contract with God to achieve some assurance that God had chosen to save them. It was an epic that in its day and for Puritan men and women typified admirably the problem and the solution of living in this world, and Puritan literature, taken as a whole, is the expression of it. It had special validity for New England colonists, many of whom were actually warriors, sea-farers, and pilgrims. It is easy to forget how moving some of the conventional imagery of Puritan literature must have been to men who knew, or whose fathers had known, what such words as "pilgrimage," or "wayfaring," or "the perils of the sea" really meant. No set of formulas can cover, of course, all that the Puritans wrote, or explain the variety of their work, the multiplicity of its themes, and the complications of intellectual and theological history which it reflects. But essential in most of it are its realism, its insistence on solid content rather than superficial form, on rhetoric as the servant of truth, and on "Words of Wisdom" rather than the "Wisdom of Words." So is its habitual dramatization of spiritual truth in terms of man's struggle from darkness to light. Whatever subject is to be discussed, the Puritan writer tries to make his argument or his exhortation strike home by putting it in concrete terms that will ring true in the ears of an -96- audience of hard-working men. Thomas Shepard believed that no one ever achieved true holiness merely by studying books, and what he wrote was: "Jesus Christ is not got with a wet finger." [26] The image was vivid to his readers who, when they read, patiently wet a finger to turn over the crowded pages. Shepard knew, too, about "the peace that passeth all understanding," and wanted his readers to understand how it surpasses all joys on earth, but he understood that the phrase might carry little force for men to whom toil in this world was the everyday stuff of experience. So he wrote: Here's infinite, eternall, present sweetnesse, goodnesse, grace, glory, and mercy to be found in this God. Why post you from mountain to hill, why spend you your money, your thoughts, time, endeavours, on things that satisfie not? Here is thy resting place. Thy cloathes may warm thee, but they cannot feed thee; thy meat may feed thee, but cannot heal thee; thy Physick may heal thee, but cannot maintain thee; thy money may maintain thee, but cannot comfort thee when distresses of conscience and anguish of heart come upon thee. This God is joy in sadnesse, light in darknesse, life in death, Heaven in Hell. Here 15

is all thine eye ever saw, thine heart ever desired, thy tongue ever asked, thy mind ever conceived. Here is all light in this Sun, and all water in this Sea, out of whom as out of a Crystall Fountain, thou shalt drink down all the refined sweetnesse of all creatures in heaven and earth for ever and ever. All the world is now seeking and tyring out themselves for rest; here only it can be found. [27]

In this passage, none of the dignity of the idea is lost, but the images — sweetness, clothes, money, meat, and physic; light, darkness, and the sun; fountains and the sea; and above all the sharp picture of a world tiring itself out in its search for rest — give life to the abstract idea because they are drawn freshly from experience and applied immediately to the individual. So far as any one paragraph can, this one illustrates the best qualities of Puritan prose. It shows the operation of a definite literary theory which, however much it might differ from those in vogue elsewhere, gave plenty of scope for an artist to write with imaginative force. The theory was not of course invented by the Puritans. Ramus had taught them to think of rhetoric not as a system with rules of its own, separate from logic, but as one dependent upon it. Words corresponded to things; the art of style was fundamentally the arrangement of them in an order which agreed with the logical structure of the created universe and with the normal procedure of the mind in dealing systematically with ideas [28]. From the classics Puritan writers, like all well- educated men of their time, learned much about basic qualities of style even though they rejected the more complicated patterns and abstruse rhetorical doctrines of the ancients. When they read current English books they found a dazzling variety of styles. Richard Hooker's -97- highly rhythmical and elaborately developed periods; the tricks of the Euphuists; the terseness of Bacon's apothegms and the lucid eloquence of his Advancement of Learning, with its comments on rhetoric; Robert Burton's intricate embroidery of allusions and quotations, which almost hid the plain texture of his own stylistic cloth; the so-called "metaphysical" prose and verse full of far-reaching metaphors, plays on words, sound echoes, hyperboles, and paradoxes, which were written by the great Anglican artists and even a few Puritans in the days of James I — all these literary modes were used in works which the Puritans could read. They might take as models, if they wished, anything from the extreme stylistic eccentricities of the 16

Elizabethan and Jacobean wits to the deliberately limited diction and grave measures of the King James and Genevan Bibles. Their task was to choose what literary paths to follow, not necessarily to explore new ones. Naturally they elected to take from the ancient and modern rhetoricians what seemed to them to consort with their philosophical and religious standards and to be best adapted for their special purposes. In so doing they achieved a stylistic synthesis, not radically original or new, since its elements were sanctioned by long usage and by reputable critical authority. It was their own, however, because their emphases, their preferences for particular literary types, and their selection among accepted rhetorical devices gave it a characteristic stamp, impressed upon it by fundamental Puritan attitudes toward letters. Their writing can be understood and criticized intelligently only when it is seen as the working out of a distinct literary theory more typical of them than of any other group. They formed and applied the theory in an attempt to answer the old riddle of how infinite and eternal verity is to be expressed in the finite terms comprehensible to mortal man. They did not always succeed but, as Shepard showed in his paragraph on the peace of God, their doctrine could be effective in the hands of the Puritan artist who wanted to drive home a "lively and affectionate" sense of the divine by shooting rhetorical arrows "not over his people's heads, but into their Hearts." [29] -98- 1. Samuel Whiting's life of John Cotton, printed in Alexander Young, Chronicles of the First Planters of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1846), pp. 421-422. 2. Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, book III, part I, chapter 1, paragraph 4. I have quoted the text of the 1855 Hartford edition, 3. Thomas Hooker, The Soules Preparation for Christ (London, 1632), p. 66. 4. Increase Mather, The Life and Death of … Mr. Richard Mather, reprinted in Collections of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, no. 3 (Boston, 1850), p. 85. 5. Ebenezer Turell, Ministers should carefully avoid giving Offense in any Thing (Boston, 1740), p. 15. 6. Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, The Puritans (New York, 1938), p. 289. 7. John Downame, Christian Warfare (London, 1609), pp. 339, 341, 342. 8. Downame, p. 339. 9. Downame, pp. 340-341. 10. I Corinthians 14:9. 17

11. Letter to Henry Dodwell, quoted in Frederick J. Powicke, The Reverend Richard Baxter; Under the Cross (1662-1691) (London, 1927), p. 224. 12. Manuscript, quoted by Powicke, p. 276. 13. I. Mather, Life and Death, p. 85. 14. Joseph Crouch, Puritanism and Art. An Inquiry into a Popular Fallacy (London, 1910), p. 199. 15. Samuel Clarke, The Lives of Thirty-Two English Divines (3d ed.; London, 1677), p. 177. 16. Reliquiae Baxterianae, edited by Matthew Sylvester (London, 1696), lib. I, part I, p. 137. 17. William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York, 1938), p. 134. 18. Richard Bernard, The Faithful Shepheard (London, 1607), p. 65. 19. Thomas Shepard, "Of Ineffectual Hearing", in Subjection to Christ (London, 1654), p. 167. 20. William Hubbard, The Happiness of a People (Boston, 1676), p. 29. 21. John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (London, 1678). "The Author's Apology for his Book." 22. Sermon, "Culpable Ignorance", in Thomas Hooker, The Saints Dignitie and Dutie (London, 1651), p. 209. 23. Sermon, "The Preparing of the Heart", in Thomas Hooker, The Soules Implantation (London, 1637), p. 50. 24. John Cotton, Christ The Fountaine of Life (London, 1651), pp. 71-72. 25. Thomas Hooker, The Application of Redemption (2d ed.; London, 1659), pp. 210- 211, 213- 214. 26. Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert (London, 1655), p. 113. 27. Sincere Convert, pp. 14-15. 28. Cf. Perry Miller, The New England Mind. The Seventeenth Century (New York, 1939), p. 327, and passim, and Miller and Johnson, Puritans, especially pp. 32-41 and 73-74. Even without Ramus, Puritan writing would probably have been essentially the same, since what his rules required was demanded also by the Puritans' theological tenets, the character of their audience, and other factors pointed out in this chapter. Mr. F. P. Wilson in a note in his Elizabethan and Jacobean (Oxford, 1945), 137, after praising Miller's work, comments: "But while Calvinists were glad to defend their methods by the doctrine of Ramus, their attachment to dialectics rather than rhetoric is too deep-rooted to be attributed to the influence of one man." 29. I. Mather, Life and Death, p. 85.

Would you like to know more about Puritanism? Access http://www.history.com/topics/puritanism and read about it. You should also see the film The Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner. 18

1.1 Anne Bradstreet

BRADSTREET, Anne. Columbia Encyclopedia Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet c.1612–1672, early American poet, b. Northampton, England, considered the first significant woman author in the American colonies. She came to Massachusetts in the Winthrop Puritan group in 1630 with her father, Thomas Dudley, and her husband, Simon Bradstreet, both later governors Figure 1. Anne Bradstreet. of the state. A dutiful Puritan wife who raised a Source: http://www.rjgeib.com/ thoughts/pregnancy/pregnancy.html large family, she nevertheless found time to write poetry. In 1650 her first volume of verse appeared in London as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. It was followed by Several Poems (Boston, 1678), which contains "Contemplations," probably her best work. Her verses are often derivative and formal, but some are graced by realistic simplicity and genuine feeling.

If you want to know more about Anne Bradstreet read: http://www.annebradstreet.com/ You can also download some of her poems in http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/bradstreet-four-poems-read-by-kate-reading/ or listen to some poems on www.youtube.com, like Contemplations, in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNT0talx5jk

Some poems of Anne Bradstreet (In MILLER)

To My Dear and Loving Husband Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. If ever two were one, then surely we. Thy love is such I can no way repay; If ever man were loved by wife, then The heavens reward thee manifold, I thee. pray. If ever wife was happy in a man, Then, while we live, in love let's so Compare with me, ye women, if you persever, can. That when we live no more we may I prize thy love more than whole mines live ever. of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth A Letter to Her Husband, Absent hold. upon Public Employment My love is such that rivers cannot quench, My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life —nay more, 19

My joy, my magazine of earthly store: I wakened was with thundering noise If two be one, as surely thou and I, And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice. How stayest thou there, whilst I at That fearful sound of "Fire!" and "Fire!" Ipswichlie? Let no man know, is my desire. So many steps head from the heart to I, starting up, the light did spy, sever, And to my God my heart did cry If but a neck, soon should we be To strengthen me in my distress, together. And not to leave me succorless; I like the earth this season mourn in Then coming out, beheld apace black; The flame consume my dwelling-place. My sun is gone so far ins's Zodiac, And when I could no longer look Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms not I blest His name that gave and took, frosts I felt, That laid my goods now in the dust; His warmth such frigid colds did cause Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just-- to melt. It was His own; it was not mine. My chilled limbs now numbed lie Far be it that I should repine. forlorn: He might of all justly bereft, Return, return, sweet sol, from But yet sufficient for us left. Capricorn. -272- In this dead time, alas, what can I more When by the ruins oft I passed Than view those fruits which through My sorrowing eyes aside did cast, thy heat I bore? And here and there the places spy -271- Where oft I sat, and long did lie. Which sweet contentment yields me for Here stood that trunk, and there that a space chest; True living pictures of their father's There lay that store I counted best; face. My pleasant things in ashes lie, O strange effect! Now thou art south And them behold no more shall I. ward gone, Under thy roof no guest shall sit, I weary grow, the tedious day so long: Nor at thy table eat a bit; But when thou northward to me shalt No pleasant tale shall e'er be told, return, Nor things recounted done of old; I wish my sun may never set, but burn No candle e'er shall shine in thee, Within the Cancer of my glowing Nor bridegroom's voice e'er heard shall breast, be. The welcome house of him, my In silence ever shalt thou lie. dearest guest. Adieu, adieu; all's vanity. Where ever, ever, stay, and go not Then straight I'gan my heart to chide: thence And did thy wealth on earth abide? Till nature's sad decree shall call thee Didst fix thy hope on mouldering dust, hence: The arm of flesh didst make thy trust? Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone, Raise up thy thoughts above the sky, I here, thou there, yet both but one. That dunghill mists away may fly. Thou hast an house on high erect; Framed by that mighty Architect, Verses upon the Burning of Our With glory richly furnished, House, July 10th, 1666 Stands permanent though this be fled. Its' purchasèd, and paid for, too, In silent night, when rest I took, By Him who hath enough to do-- For sorrow near I did not look. A price so vast as is unknown, 20

Yet, by His gift, is made thine own. The world no longer let me love. There's wealth enough; I need no My hope and treasure lie above. more. -273- Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store;

1.2 Edward Taylor

TAYLOR, Edward. Columbia Encyclopedia

Edward Taylor c.1642–1729, American poet and clergyman, b. England, considered America's foremost colonial poet. He emigrated to America in 1668 and graduated from Harvard in 1671. From then until his death, he served as Congregational minister for Westfield, Mass. An ardent Puritan, Taylor agreed completely with the Calvinistic beliefs of his time. His best poems, "God's Determinations" and "Preparatory Meditations," show a strong similarity to the English devotional metaphysical Figure 2. Edward Taylor. poets. Since he did not publish his poems in his Source: http://blogs.rockingham. lifetime, his poetry remained in manuscript until 1937. k12.va.us/textbook03/files/2012/ 04/FFEdward_Taylor.jpg In 1939, T. H. Johnson published a selection of his poems. The best edition of Taylor's works was edited by D. E. Stanford in 1960.

If you are interested in learn more about the Puritan poet Edward Taylor, see http://www.puritansermons.com/poetry/taylor.htm and http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/edward-taylor.

Some poems of Edward Taylor

Meditation One Married our manhood, making it its bride? What love is this of Thine, that cannot be Oh, matchless love! filling heaven to In Thine infinity, O Lord, confined, the brim! Unless it in Thy very Person see O'er running it, all running o'er beside Infinity and finity conjoined? This world! Nay, overflowing hell, What! hath Thy godhead, as not wherein satisfied, 21

For Thine elect there rose a mighty All pinked with varnished flowers of tide! paradise. That there our veins might through Thy Then clothe therewith mine Person bleed understanding, will, To quench those flames that else Affections, judgment, conscience, wouldon us feed. memory, My words and actions, that their shine Oh! that my love might overflow my may fill heart My ways with glory and Thee glorify. To fire the same with love! For love I Then mine apparel shall display before would, Ye But oh! my straitened breast! my That I am clothed in holy robes for lifeless spark! glory. My fireless flame! What chilly love and cold! The Ebb and Flow In measure small! in manner chilly! See! When first Thou on me, Lord, Lord, blow the coal, Thy love enflame wrought'st Thy sweet print, in me. My heart was made Thy tinder-box. -310- My 'ffections were Thy tinder in't, (…) Where fell Thy sparks by drops. Housewifery These holy sparks of heavenly fire that came Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning-wheel Did ever catch and often out would complete. flame. Thy holy Word my distaff make for me; But now my heart is made Thy censer Make mine affections Thy swift flyers trim, neat; Full of Thy golden altar's fire, And make my soul Thy holy spool to To offer up sweet incense in be; Unto Thyself entire: My conversation make to be Thy reel, I find my tinder scarce Thy sparks can And reel the yarn thereon spun of Thy feel wheel. That drop out from Thy holy flint and steel. Make me Thy loom then; knit therein -317- this twine; Hence doubts outbud, for fear Thy fire And make Thy Holy Spirit, Lord, wind in me quills; 'S a mocking ignis fatuus, Then weave the web Thyself. The yarn Or lest Thine altar's fire out be. is fine. It's hid in ashes thus. Thine ordinances make my fulling Yet when the bellows of Thy spirit mills. blow, Then dye the same in heavenly colors Away mine ashes: then Thy fire doth choice, glow. -318-

22

2. Enlightenment in American Poetry

American Enlightenment Thought

Shane J. Ralston

Although there is no consensus about the exact span of time that corresponds to the American Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the eighteenth century among thinkers in British North America and the early United States and was inspired by the ideas of the British and French Enlightenments. Based on the metaphor of bringing light to the Dark Age, the Age of the Enlightenment (Siècle des lumières in French and Aufklärung in German) shifted allegiances away from absolute authority, whether religious or political, to more skeptical and optimistic attitudes about human nature, religion and politics. the American context, thinkers such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin invented and adopted revolutionary ideas about scientific rationality, religious toleration and experimental political organization—ideas that would have far-reaching effects on development of the fledgling nation. Some coupled science and religion in the notion of deism; others asserted the natural rights of man in the anti-authoritarian doctrine of liberalism; and still others touted the importance of cultivating virtue, enlightened leadership and community in early forms of republican thinking. least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. Many these were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form. Enlightenment Age Thinking The pre- and post-revolutionary era in American history generated propitious conditions for Enlightenment thought to thrive on an order comparable witnessed in the European Enlightenments. In the pre-revolutionary years, Americans reacted to the misrule of King George III, the unfairness of Parliament (“taxation without representation”) and exploitative treatment at the hands of a colonial power: the English Empire. The Englishman-cum-revolutionary Paine wrote the famous pamphlet The Rights of Man, decrying the abuses of the North American colonies by their English masters. In the post-revolutionary years, a whole generation of American thinkers would found a new system of government on liberal and 23

republican principles, articulating their enduring documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and the United States Constitution. Although distinctive features arose in the eighteenth-century American context, much of the American Enlightenment was continuous with parallel experiences British and French society. Four themes recur in both European and American Enlightenment texts: modernization, skepticism, reason and liberty. Modernization means that beliefs and institutions based on absolute moral, religious and political authority (such as the divine right of kings and the Régime) will become increasingly eclipsed by those based on science, rationality and religious pluralism. Many Enlightenment thinkers — especially the philosophers, such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot — subscribed to some form of skepticism, doubting appeals to miraculous, transcendent and supernatural forces that potentially limit the scope of individual choice and reason. Reason that is universally shared and definitive of the human nature also became dominant theme in Enlightenment thinkers’ writings, particularly Immanuel Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” and his Groundwork of the Metaphysics Morals. The fourth theme, liberty and rights assumed a central place in theories of political association, specifically as limits state authority originating the advent of states (that is, in a state of nature) and manifesting in social contracts, especially in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government Thomas Jefferson’s drafts of the Declaration of Independence. a. Moderate and Radical Besides identifying dominant themes running throughout the Enlightenment period, some historians, such as Henry May and Jonathan Israel, understand Enlightenment thought as divisible into two broad categories, each reflecting the content and intensity of ideas prevalent at the time. The moderate Enlightenment signifies commitments to economic liberalism, religious toleration and constitutional politics. In contrast to its moderate incarnation, the radical Enlightenment conceives enlightened thought through the prism of revolutionary rhetoric and classical Republicanism. Some commentators argue that the British Enlightenment (especially figures such as James Hutton, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith) was essentially moderate, while the French (represented by Denis Diderot, Adrien Helvétius and François Marie Arouet) was decidedly more radical. Influenced as it was by the British and French, American Enlightenment thought integrates both moderate and radical elements. 24

b. Chronology American Enlightenment thought can also be appreciated chronologically, or in terms of three temporal stages in the development of Enlightenment Age thinking. The early stage stretches from the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1750, when members of Europe’s middle class began to break the monarchical and aristocratic regimes — whether through scientific discovery, social and political change or emigration outside of Europe, including The middle stage extends from 1751 to just a few years after the start of the American Revolution in 1779. It is characterized by an exploding fascination science, religious revivalism and experimental forms of government, especially in the United States. The late stage begins in 1780 and ends with the rise Napoléon Bonaparte, as the French Revolution comes to a close in 1815 — a period in which the European Enlightenment was in decline, while the American Enlightenment reclaimed and institutionalized many of its seminal ideas. However, American Enlightenment thinkers were not always of a single mind European counterparts. For instance, several American Enlightenment thinkers — particularly James Madison and John Adams, though not Benjamin judged the French philosophers to be morally degenerate intellectuals of the era. c. Democracy and the Social Contract Many European and American Enlightenment figures were critical of democracy. Skepticism about the value of democratic institutions was likely a legacy Plato’s belief that democracy led to tyranny and Aristotle’s view that democracy was the best of the worst forms of government. John Adams and James Madison perpetuated the elitist and anti-democratic idea that to invest too much political power in the hands of uneducated and property-less people society at constant risk of social and political upheaval. Although several of America’s Enlightenment thinkers condemned democracy, others were more receptive to the idea of popular rule as expressed in European social contract theories. Thomas Jefferson was strongly influenced by John Locke’s social contract theory, while Thomas Paine found inspiration in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s. In the Two Treatises on Government (1689 and 1690), Locke against the divine right of kings and in favor of government grounded on the consent of the governed; so long as people would have agreed to hand over of their liberties enjoyed in a pre-political society or state of nature in exchange for the protection of basic rights to life, liberty and property. However, state reneged on the social contract by failing to protect those natural rights, then the 25

people had a right to revolt and form a new government. Perhaps a democrat than Locke, Rousseau insisted in The Social Contract (1762) that citizens have a right of self-government, choosing the rules by which they and the judges who shall enforce those rules. If the relationship between the will of the state and the will of the people (the “general will”) is to be democratic, should be mediated by as few institutions as possible. 2. Six Key Ideas At least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. These were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form. a. Deism European Enlightenment thinkers conceived tradition, custom and prejudice (Vorurteil) as barriers to gaining true knowledge of the universal laws of The solution was deism or understanding God’s existence as divorced from holy books, divine providence, revealed religion, prophecy and miracles; basing religious belief on reason and observation of the natural world. Deists appreciated God as a reasonable Deity. A reasonable God endowed with rationality in order that they might discover the moral instructions of the universe in the natural law. God created the universal laws that govern nature, afterwards humans realize God’s will through sound judgment and wise action. Deists were typically (though not always) Protestants, sharing a disdain religious dogmatism and blind obedience to tradition exemplified by the Catholic Church. Rather than fight members of the Catholic faith with violence intolerance, most deists resorted to the use of tamer weapons such as humor and mockery. Both moderate and radical American Enlightenment thinkers, such as James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and George Washington, were deists. Some struggled with the tensions between Calvinist orthodoxy and deist beliefs, while other subscribed to the populist version deism advanced by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason. Franklin was remembered for stating in the Constitutional Convention that “the longer I live, convincing proof I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men.” In what would become known as the Jefferson Bible (originally Morals of Jesus of Nazareth), Jefferson chronicles the life and times of Jesus Christ from a deist perspective, eliminating all mention of 26

miracles or divine intervention. God for deists such as Jefferson never loomed large in humans’ day-to-day life beyond offering a moral or humanistic outlook and the resource reason to discover the content of God’s laws. Despite the near absence of God in human life, American deists did not deny His existence, largely because majority of the populace still remained strongly religious, traditionally pious and supportive of the good works (for example monasteries, religious schools community service) that the clergy did. b. Liberalism Another idea central to American Enlightenment thinking is liberalism, that is, the notion that humans have natural rights and that government authority absolute, but based on the will and consent of the governed. Rather than a radical or revolutionary doctrine, liberalism was rooted in the commercial and tolerant Protestantism embraced by merchants in Northern Europe, particularly Holland and England. Liberals favored the interests of the middle those of the high-born aristocracy, an outlook of tolerant pluralism that did not discriminate between consumers or citizens based on their race or creed, system devoted to the protection of private property rights, and an ethos of strong individualism over the passive collectivism associated with feudal arrangements. Liberals also preferred rational argumentation and free exchange of ideas to the uncritical of religious doctrine or governmental mandates way, liberal thinking was anti-authoritarian. Although later liberalism became associated with grassroots democracy and a sharp separation of the public private domains, early liberalism favored a parliamentarian form of government that protected liberty of expression and movement, the right to petition government, separation of church and state and the confluence of public and private interests in philanthropic and entrepreneurial endeavors. The claim that private individuals have fundamental God-given rights, such as to property, life, liberty and to pursue their conception of good, begins English philosopher John Locke, but also finds expression in Thomas Jefferson’s drafting of the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Bill of Rights, ten amendments to the Constitution, guarantees a schedule of individual rights based on the liberal ideal. During the constitutional convention, James responded to the anti-Federalists’ demand for a bill of rights as a condition of ratification by reviewing over two-hundred proposals and distilling them initial list of twelve suggested amendments to the Constitution, covering the rights of free speech, religious liberty, right to bear arms 27

and habeas corpus others. While ten of those suggested were ratified in 1791, one missing amendment (stopping laws created by Congress to increase its members’ salaries taking effect until the next legislative term) would have to wait until 1992 to be ratified as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Madison’s concern that the Rights should apply not only to the federal government would eventually be accommodated with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (especially process clause) in 1868 and a series of Supreme Court cases throughout the twentieth-century interpreting each of the ten amendments as “incorporated” thus protecting citizens against state governments as well. c. Republicanism Classical republicanism is a commitment to the notion that a nation ought to be ruled as a republic, in which selection of the state’s highest public official determined by a general election, rather than through a claim to hereditary right. Republican values include civic patriotism, virtuous citizenship and property based personality. Developed during late antiquity and early renaissance, classic republicanism differed from early liberalism insofar as rights were not to be granted by God in a pre-social state of nature, but were the products of living in political society. On the classical republican view of liberty, citizens exercise freedom within the context of existing social relations, historical associations and traditional communities, not as autonomous individuals set apart their social and political ties. In this way, liberty for the classical republican is positively defined by the political society instead of negatively defined in the pre-social individual’s natural rights. While prefigured by the European Enlightenment, the American Enlightenment also promoted the idea that a nation should be governed as a republic, the state’s head is popularly elected, not appointed through a hereditary blood-line. As North American colonists became increasingly convinced that rule was corrupt and inimical to republican values, they joined militias and eventually formed the American Continental Army under George Washington’s command. The Jeffersonian ideal of the yeoman farmer, which had its roots in the similar Roman ideal, represented the eighteenth-century American hard-working agrarian and as a citizen-soldier devoted to the republic. When elected to the highest office of the land, George Washington famously when offered a royal title, preferring instead the more republican title of President. Though scholarly debate persists over the relative importance of liberalism and republicanism during the American Revolution and Founding, the view that 28

republican ideas were a formative influence American Enlightenment thinking has gained widespread acceptance. d. Conservatism Though the Enlightenment is more often associated with liberalism and republicanism, an undeniable strain of conservatism emerged in the last stage of Enlightenment, mainly as a reaction to the excesses of the French Revolution. In 1790 Edmund Burke anticipated the dissipation of order and decency society following the revolution (often referred to as “the Terror”) in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Though it is argued that Burkean conservatism was a reaction to the Enlightenment (or anti-Enlightenment), conservatives were also operating within the framework of Enlightenment ideas. Some Enlightenment claims about human nature are turned back upon themselves and shown to break down when applied more generally to human For instance, Enlightenment faith in universal declarations of human rights do more harm than good when they contravene the conventions and traditions specific nations, regions and localities. Similar to the classical republicans, Burke believed that human personality was the product of living in a political not a set of natural rights that predetermined our social and political relations. Conservatives attacked the notion of a social contract (prominent in the Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) as a mythical construction that overlooked the plurality of groups and perspectives in society, a fact which made brokering compromises inevitable and universal consent impossible. Burke only insisted on a tempered version, not a wholesale rejection of Enlightenment values. Conservatism featured strongly in American Enlightenment thinking. While Burke was critical of the French Revolution, he supported the American Revolution for disposing of English colonial misrule while creatively readapting British traditions and institutions to the American temperament. American Enlightenment thinkers such as James Madison and John Adams held views that echoed and in some cases anticipated Burkean conservatism, leading them to criticize of revolutionary France and the popular pro-French Jacobin clubs during and after the French Revolution. In the forty-ninth Federalist Paper, James deployed a conservative argument against frequent appeals to democratic publics on constitutional questions because they threatened to undermine political stability and substitute popular passion for the “enlightened reason” of elected representatives. Madison’s conservative view was 29

opposed to Jefferson’s view that a constitutional convention should be convened every twenty years, for “[t]he earth belongs to the living generation,” and so each new generation should be empowered to reconsider its constitutional norms. e. Toleration Toleration or tolerant pluralism was also a major theme in American Enlightenment thought. Tolerance of difference developed in parallel with the early liberalism prevalent among Northern Europe’s merchant class. It reflected their belief that hatred or fear of other races and creeds interfered with economic trade, extinguished freedom of thought and expression, eroded the basis for friendship among nations and led to persecution and war. Tiring of religious (particularly as the 16th century French wars of religion and the 17th century Thirty Years War), European Enlightenment thinkers imagined an age in enlightened reason not religious dogmatism governed relations between diverse peoples with loyalties to different faiths. The Protestant Reformation and Treaty of Westphalia significantly weakened the Catholic Papacy, empowered secular political institutions and provided the conditions for independent to flourish. American thinkers inherited this principle of tolerant pluralism from their European Enlightenment forebearers. Inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment John Knox and George Buchanan, American Calvinists created open, friendly and tolerant institutions such as the secular public school and democratically organized religion (which became the Presbyterian Church). Many American Enlightenment thinkers, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson Madison, read and agreed with John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration. In it, Locke argued that government is ill- equipped to judge the rightness wrongness of opposing religious doctrines, faith could not be coerced and if attempted the result would be greater religious and political discord. So, government ought to protect liberty of conscience, the right to worship as one chooses (or not to worship at all) and refrain from establishing an official church. For America’s founders, the fledgling nation was to be a land where persons of every faith or no faith could settle and thrive peacefully cooperatively without fear of persecution by government or fellow citizens. Ben Franklin’s belief that religion was an aid to cultivating virtue led him to funds to every church in Philadelphia. Defending freedom of conscience, James Madison would write that “[c]onscience is the most sacred of all property.” In1777, Thomas Jefferson drafted a religious liberty bill for Virginia to disestablish the government-sponsored Anglican 30

Church — often referred to as “precursor to the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment”—which eventually passed with James Madison’s help. f. Scientific Progress The Enlightenment enthusiasm for scientific discovery was directly related to the growth of deism and skepticism about received religious doctrine. Deists engaged in scientific inquiry not only to satisfy their intellectual curiosity, but to respond to a divine calling to expose God’s natural laws. Advances in knowledge — whether the rejection of the geocentric model of the universe because of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo’s work or the discovery of natural such as Newton’s mathematical explanation of gravity — removed the need for a constantly intervening God. With the release of Sir Isaac Newton’s in 1660, faith in scientific progress took institutional form in the Royal Society of England, the Académie des Sciences in France and later the Academy Sciences in Germany. In pre-revolutionary America, scientists or natural philosophers belonged to the Royal Society until 1768, when Benjamin Franklin helped create and then served as the first president of the American Philosophical Society. Franklin became one of the most famous American scientists the Enlightenment period because of his many practical inventions and his theoretical work on the properties of electricity.

If you want to know more about American Enlightenment, you should see the TV series John Adams, directed by Tom Hooper, a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most of U.S. President John Adams' political life and his role in the founding of the United States

2.1. Philip Freneau

FRENEAU, Philip Columbia Encyclopedia

Philip Freneau (frēnō´), 1752–1832, American poet and journalist, b. New York City, grad. Princeton, 1771. During the American Revolution he served as soldier and privateer. His experiences as a prisoner of war were recorded in his poem The British Prison Ship (1781). The first professional American journalist, he was a powerful propagandist and satirist for the American Revolution and for Jeffersonian democracy. Freneau edited various papers, including the partisan National Gazette (Philadelphia, 1791–93) for Jefferson. He was usually involved in editorial quarrels, 31

and, influential though he was, none of his papers was profitable. His political and

Figure 3. Philip Freneau. satirical poems have value Engraving by Frederick Halpin. mainly for historians, but his Source: Austin, Mary place as the earliest important S.: Philip Freneau, the poet of the Revolution: a history American lyric poet is secured of his life and times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F by such poems as "The Wild ile:Philip_freneau.jpg Honey Suckle," "The Indian Burying Ground," and "Eutaw Springs."

Some poems of Philip Freneau (In CLARK)

THE WIID HONEY SUCKLE -48- (…) Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, THE HURRICANE Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Happy, the man who, safe on shore, Unseen thy little branches greet: Now trims, at home, his evening fire; No roving foot shall crush thee here, Unmoved, he hears the tempests roar, No busy hind provoke a tear. That on the tufted groves expire: Alas! on us they doubly fall, By Nature's self in white arrayed, Our feeble barque must bear them all. She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the guardian shade, Now to their haunts the birds retreat, And sent soft waters murmuring by; 10 The'squirrel seeks his hollow tree, Thus quietly thy summer goes, Wolves in their shaded caverns meet, Thy days declining to repose. All, all are blest but wretched we 10 Foredoomed a stranger to repose, Smit with those charms, that must No rest the unsettled ocean knows. decay, I grieve to see your future doom; While o'er the dark abyss we roam, They died—nor were those flowers Perhaps, with last departing gleam, more gay. We saw the sun descend in gloom, The flowers that did in Eden bloom; No more to see his morning beam; Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power But buried low, by far too deep, Shall leave no vestige of this flower, On coral beds, unpitied, sleep!

From morning suns and evening dews But what a strange, uncoasted strand At first thy little being came: 20 Is that, where fate, permits no day 20 If nothing once, you nothing lose, No charts have we to mark that land, For when you die you are the same; No compass to direct that way— The space between, is but an hour, What Pilot Shall explore that realm, The frail duration of a flower. What new Columbus take the helm! 1786 32

While death and darkness both And not the bid ideas gone. surround, -50- And tempests rage with lawless power, Thou, stranger, that shalt come this Of friendship's voice I hear no sound, way, No comfort in this dreadful hour— No fraud upon the dead commit— What friendship can in tempests be, Observe the swelling turf, and say What comforts-on this raging sea? 30 They do not lie, but here they sit. 20

The barque, accustomed to obey, Here stiff a lofty rock remains, No more the trembling pilots guide: On which, the curious eye may trace Alone she gropes her trackless way, (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) While mountains burst on either side— The fancies of a ruder racie. Thus, skill and science both must fall; And ruin is the lot of all. Here still an aged elm aspires, 1785 Beneath whose far-projecting shade (And which the shepherd still admires) THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND The children of the forest played!

In spite Of all the learned have said, There oft a restless Indian queen I still my old opinion keep; (Pale Shebah, with her braided hair) 30 The posture, that we give the dead, And many a barbarous form is seen Points out the soul's eternal sleep. To chide the man that lingers there.

Not so the ancients of these lands— By midnight moons, o'er moistening The Indian, when from life released, dews, Again is seated with his friends, In habit for the chase arrayed, And shares again the joyous feast. The hunter still the deer pursues, His imaged birds, and painted bowl, The hunter and the deer, a shade! And venison, for a journey dressed, 10 Bespeak the nature of the soul, And long shall timorous fancy see Activity, that knows no rest. The painted chief, and pointed spear, And Reason's self shall bow the knee His bow, for action ready bent, To shadows and delusions here. 40 And arrows, with a head of stone, 1788 Can only mean that life is spent, -51-

Do you want to know more about Philip Freneau? Read: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap2/freneau.html You can also download some of his poems in MP3 format in http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/philip-freneau/

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2.2. Phillis Wheatley

WHEATLEY, Phillis Columbia Encyclopedia Phillis Wheatley 1753?–1784, American poet, considered the first important black writer in the United States. Brought from Africa in 1761, she became a house slave for the Boston merchant John Wheatley and his wife Susanna, who, recognizing her intelligence and wit, educated her and encouraged her talent. Her work, which was derivative, was published in the collection Poems on Various Subjects (1773) and in various magazines. A Figure 4. Frontispiece to Phillis second volume existed in manuscript, but it was not Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects... published and was subsequently lost. Although Wheatley painted by Scipio Moorhead. traveled to England, where she was much admired, and Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik soon thereafter obtained her freedom, she i/File:Phillis_Wheatley_fro eventually died in poverty. ntispiece.jpg

Some poems of Phillis Wheatley (In. MASON JR.)

AMERICA Was said with seeming Sympathy and Love New England first a wilderness was By many Scourges she his goodness found try'd Till for a continent 'twas destin'd round Untill at length the Best of Infants cry'd From feild to feild the savage monsters He wept, Brittania turn'd a senseless run ear E'r yet Brittania had her work begun At last awaken'd by maternal fear Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong Why weeps americus why weeps my the weak Child And (wond'rous instinct) Ethiopians Thus spake Brittania, thus benign and speak mild Sometimes by Simile, a victory's won My dear mama said he, shall I repeat A certain lady had an only son — He grew up daily virtuous as he grew Then Prostrate fell, at her maternal feet Fearing his Strength which she What ails the rebel, great Brittania undoubted knew Cry'd She laid some taxes on her darling son Indeed said he, you have no cause to And would have laid another act there Chide on You see each day my fluent tears m Amend your manners I'll the task y food. remove Without regard, what no more English blood? 34

Has length of time drove from our Resent it on them that dislike Obey English viens. But how shall we exalt the British king The kindred he to Great Brittania -126- deigns? Who ruleth france Possessing Tis thus with thee O Brittain keeping everything down The sweet remembrance of whose New English force, thou fear'st his favours past Tyranny and thou didst frown The meanest peasants bless the great -125- the last He weeps afresh to feel this Iron chain May George belov'd of all the nations Turn, O Brittania claim thy child again round Riecho Love drive by thy powerful Live and by earths and heavens charms blessings crownd Indolence Slumbering in forgetful arms May heaven protect and Guard him See Agenoria diligent imploy's from on high Her sons, and thus with rapture she And at his presence every evil fly replys Thus every clime with equal gladness Arise my sons with one consent arise See Lest distant continents with vult'ring When kings do Smile it sets their eyes Subjects free Should charge America with When wars came on the proudest Negligence rebel fled They praise Industry but no pride God thunder'd fury on their guilty head commence Phillis To raise their own Profusion, O Brittain See ON FRIENDSHIP By this, New England will increase like thee Let amicitia in her ample reign Extend her notes to a Celestial strain TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT Benevolent far more divinely Bright MAJESTY8 ON HIS REPEALING THE Amor like me doth triumph at the sight AMERICAN STAMP ACT When my thoughts in gratitude imploy Mental Imaginations give me Joy Your Subjects hope Now let my thoughts in Contemplation The crown upon your head may steer flourish long The Footsteps of the Superlative fair And in great wars your royal arms be Written by Phillis Wheatley strong Boston July 15 1769 May your Sceptre many nations sway -127-

If you want to read more about the first African-American poet, go to the following sites: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/aframerwriters/a/philliswheatley.htm; http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/phillis-wheatley; and http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/whea-phi.htm. You can also download some of her poems in http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/phillis-wheatley/.

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3. American Romanticism and Transcendentalism

American Romanticism

Maria do Socorro Baptista Barbosa

Romanticism, as an artistic and literary movement is closely related to the idea of nation. Maurice Cranston declares that the concept of ‘nation’ has always been a disputed one, and that nationalism has had a different form in different contexts. To him, these differences in turn “have had their effect not only on the ideals to which the romantic imagination has been directed, but on the tone and colour of romantic expression” (140). Although Cranston himself argues that Romanticism has not had such a role in the literary history of the USA, he points out that such a romantic influence may have happened through what he calls the “devious way” of popular literature, in which the plays about Pocahontas may be included. According to Anthony Quinton, in “Romantic Irony”, Romanticism must be seen as a “cluster of attitudes and preferences” that helps historians and literary critics to distinguish some writers from others. However, it is not definable “in a short formula made up of precisely demarcated terms” (778). Thus, it is easier to discuss some characteristics of such a complex phenomenon than to try giving it a concrete definition. It is possible to say, then, that Romantic thinkers, still according to Quinton, favor “the concrete over the abstract, variety over uniformity, the infinite over the finite, -46- nature over culture, convention and artifice, the organic over the mechanical, freedom over constraint, rules and limitations”. Romantic writers also prefer, says Quinton, in human terms, “the unique individual to the average man, the free creative genius to the prudent man of good sense, the particular community or nation to humanity at large” (778). In “The Influence of Philosophy”, Quinton states that Romanticism was strongly dependent on philosophy. As he argues, Romantic emphasis on emotion and liberation comes from Rousseau, and the notion of a higher kind of reason comes from post-Kantian philosophers, like Fichte and Schelling, taken up most directly by the British Romantic writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Romantic affiliation, says Quinton, was Herder’s idea of the unique individuality of particular peoples, which implies a nationalism that was affirmed by Fichte and bureaucratized by Hegel, also 36

borrowed from Rousseau and Burke. As Quinton says, “the way was prepared for the rampant nationalism of the nineteenth century and the erosion of dynastic absolutism” (673). This relationship between Romanticism and Philosophy certainly serves to reinforce the link between Romantic texts and the construction of national identities in the beginning of the nineteenth century, for it helps establish the very concept of nation, which acquires its modern meaning during Romanticism. Romanticism, as critics like Maurice Cranston and Jerome MacGann argue, is an intellectual and aesthetic phenomenon that emphasizes three main points. At fist, the Romantic universe is seen as a single unified whole, which means that everything is connected to everything else; second, the Romantic universe is seen as full of values, tendencies, and life; and third, the best way of perceiving reality, to the Romantic, is through some subjective feeling or intuition, which makes the poet participate in the subject of his/her own knowledge, instead of viewing it from the outside. However, due -47- to the impossibility of giving a complete definition of Romanticism, it is crucial to the understanding of this movement in literature and the arts in general, to discuss some of its features, especially the ones that most differentiate Romanticism from previous schools of thought. The most important of these features, closely connected to the three points discussed above, is Individualism. (…) -48- As for American Romanticism, Individualism is perhaps the primary concept that, transcending such categories as race, gender, class, age and region, unites Americans across time and space to give coherence to the national experience. From the earliest beginnings of the republic to the post-modernist present, the rights of the individual citizen and his or her place in the scheme of things have been of primary importance to American writers, philosophers, artists, political theorists, theologians and others concerned with articulating national values and principles. The development of the self became a major theme; self-awareness a primary method. If, according to Romantic theory, self and nature were one, self-awareness was not a selfish dead end but a mode of knowledge opening up the universe. If one's self were one with all humanity, then the individual had a moral duty to reform 37

social inequalities and relieve human suffering. The idea of "self" — which suggested selfishness to earlier generations — was redefined. New compound words with positive meanings emerged: “self-realization,” “self-expression,” “self- reliance.” A very important movement, which is closely connected to American Romanticism, especially in what concerns individualism and the idealization of nature, is Transcendentalism. It is, like Romanticism, a movement that defies neat definition. The main principles of Transcendentalism were established by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his book Nature (1836), considered by Harmon Smith, in My Friend, My Friend: The Story of Thoreau's Relationship with Emerson, as “one of the great manifestos of American Transcendentalism” (72). These principles are: 1) all objects are miniature versions of the universe; 2) intuition and conscience “transcend” experience and reason; 3) man is one with nature; and 4) God is everywhere, in nature and in man (Bayn et al 49 384-412). Seen as an extension of Romanticism by most of the critics, Transcendentalism was its philosophical aspect, focusing primarily upon intuition and emotion over reason, and idealizing nature as an important part of human life, man himself being a part of it. It is through this philosophy that romantic individualism becomes stronger and fully justified in the US. In aesthetic terms, romantic individualism was constituted by the uprising of feeling against forms — the rejection of classical equilibrium in favor of Romantic asymmetry. Embracing the unknown, and unafraid of the oppositions of human life, Romanticism overthrew the philosophic, artistic — even geographical — limitations of the Enlightenment. The ideal Romantic figure was the Wanderer, literally and figuratively voyaging in search of new lands, new places in the imagination, and new views for the soul. This figure, as Robert Spillman and Deborah Stein state in Poetry into Song: Performances and Analysis of Lieder, represents the “Heightened Individuality” of Romantic writings in their need “to explore the unknown and the dichotomous” (6) As Romanticism developed everywhere, imagination was praised over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science — paving the way for a vast body of literature of great sensibility and passion. Literature from this period emphasized a new flexibility of form adapted to varying context and fast moving plots, and allowed mixed genres (the tragicomedy, the mingling of the grotesque and the sublime, and 38

the melodrama) and freer style. Certain themes were, nevertheless, present in almost all nineteenth century writers, either European or American: First: A sense of liberty, due to the Romantic philosophy itself, in which the desire to be free from convention and tyranny, as well as a strong emphasis on the rights and dignity of the individual were established. (…) -50- (…) Second: The valorization of nature, with a delight in unspoiled scenery and in the (presumably) innocent life of rural dwellers. Often combined with this feeling for rural life is a generalized romantic melancholy, a sense that change is eminent and that a way of life is being threatened. For the romantic, Nature was, indeed, a constant companion and teacher — both benevolent and cruel. It became the arena in which the human drama was performed, the context in which a human being came to understand his/her place in the universe. (…) -51- (…) Third: A lure of the exotic, in which there is an expansion of the writers’ -52- imaginary horizons both spatially and chronologically. The shapeless world of dreams, the dark terrors of the mind as well as the confusing heights of creativity and the stunning beauties of nature in exotic lands — these were all way stations along the Romantic hero’s path. As Renata Wasserman argues, European writers Europeanized the exotic and then made it available for American use, which means that, after independence, American writers started to use the exotic as a way to establish a national identity, as in the narratives of Cooper. -53-

The American Transcendentalist Poets Lawrence Buell THE practice of poetry was both tangential and central to American Transcendentalism. Tangential, in that Transcendentalism was a multiform movement, religiocentric at its core and inspired by the participants' excitement at the 39

prospect of individual and social transformation owing to the divinity they saw inherent in or directly accessible to human nature. All but a few held the composition of verses ancillary to this goal of human transformation. Yet as late Romantics and as well-bred post-Puritan provincials thoroughly socialized into appreciation of the chaster forms of high culture, the Transcendentalists held poetry in far higher reverence than late twentieth century culture does, prizing it as the loftiest form of artistic expression. The Hebrew prophets, the bardic and priestly poet-prophecy of other nations, Milton and Wordsworth and contemporary criticism — all these had taught the Transcendentalists to think of poetry as, in principle, the most fitting vehicle for the logos among all the literary genres. The fact that poetry had since the beginnings of the colonial period been the one and only fictive genre considered morally sound reinforced the Transcendentalists' esteem for it, as did their personal fondness for reading and writing. For they were by temperament an unusually bookish lot. Most of the men were trained to be ministers; a number of both sexes were teachers. In short, the Transcendentalists were people of the word: eager consumers of texts and producers of discourse. For such people — from such a class and region at such a point in American history — to admire poetry and seek to write it were almost second nature.

-97-

If you want to know more about American Romanticism and Transcendentalism, read http://www.english-e-corner.com/americanliterature/contents/ Romanticism1/default.htm and http://transcendentalism.tamu.edu/

3.1. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth Columbia Encyclopedia Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-82, American poet, b. Portland, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1825. He wrote some of the most popular poems in American literature, in which he created a new body of romantic American legends. Descended from an established New England family, after college he spent the next three years in Europe, preparing himself for a professorship of modern languages at 40

Bowdoin, where he taught from 1829 to 1835. After the death of his young wife in 1835, Longfellow traveled again to Europe, where he met Frances Appleton, who was to become his second wife after a long courtship. She was the model for the heroine of his prose romance, Hyperion (1839). From 1836 to 1854, Longfellow was professor of modern languages at Harvard, and during these years he became one of an intellectual triumvirate that included Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell.

Although a sympathetic and ethical person, Figure 5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was uninvolved in the compelling Longfellow on the Isle of Wight, England in 1868 by Julia Margaret religious and social issues of his time; he did, Cameron (1815 – 1879) Source: however, display interest in the abolitionist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry WLongFellow1868.jpg cause. He achieved great fame with long narrative poems such as Evangeline (1847), The Song of Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), which included "Paul Revere's Ride." In all of these works he used unusual, "antique" rhythms to weave myths of the American past. His best-known shorter poems include "The Village Blacksmith," "Excelsior," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "A Psalm of Life," and "A Cross of Snow. "Although he was highly praised and successful in his lifetime, Longfellow's literary reputation has declined in the 20th cent. His unorthodox meters, while contributing to the unique effects of his poems, have been much parodied, and many critics have viewed harshly his simple, sentimental, often moralizing verse. Longfellow made a poetic translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1867), for which he wrote a sequence of six outstanding sonnets. After his death, he was the first American whose bust was placed in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

If you want to know mora about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow read http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-wadsworth-longfellow. You can read the entire poem The Song of Hiawatha in http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19/pg19.txt or download the audio file in http://librivox.org/the-song-of-hiawatha-by-henry-wadsworth-longfellow/ 41

From THE SONG OF HIAWATHA

INTRODUCTION I should answer your inquiries "SHOULD you ask me, whence these Straightway in such words as follow. stories? "In the vale ofTawasentha, Whence these legends and traditions, In the green and silent valley, With the odors of the forest, By the pleasant water-courses, With the dew and damp of meadows, Dwelt the singer Nawadaha. With the curling smoke of wigwams, With the rushing of great rivers, Round about the Indian village With their frequent repetitions, Spread the meadows and the corn- And their wild reverberations, fields, As of thunder in the mountains? And beyond them stood the forest, I should answer, I should tell you, Stood the groves of singing pine-trees, -113- Green in Summer, white in Winter, "From the forests and the prairies, Ever sighing, ever singing. From the great lakes of the Northland, "And the pleasant water-courses, From the land of the Ojibways, You could trace them through the From the land of the Dacotahs, valley, From the mountains, moors, and By the rushing in the Spring-time, fenlands By the alders in the Summer, Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, By the white fog in the Autumn, Feeds among the reeds and rushes. By the black line in the Winter; I repeat them as I heard them And beside them dwelt the singer, From the lips of Nawadaha, In the vale of Tawasentha, The musician, the sweet singer." In the green and silent valley.

"There he sang ofHiawatha, Should you ask where Nawadaha Sang the Song of Hiawatha, Found these songs so wild and Sang his wondrous birth and being, wayward, How he prayed and how he fasted, Found these legends and traditions, How he lived, and toiled, and suffered, I should answer, I should tell you, That the tribes of men might prosper, "In the bird's-nests of the forest, That he might advance his people!" In the lodges of the beaver, Ye who love the haunts of Nature, In the hoof-prints of the bison, Love the sunshine of the meadow, In the eyry of the eagle! Love the shadow of the forest, "All the wild-fowl sang them to him, Love the wind among the branches, In the moorlands and the fenlands, And the rain-shower and the snow- In the melancholy marshes; storm, Chetowaik, the plover, sang them, And the rushing of great rivers Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Through their palisades of pine-trees, Wawa, And the thunder in the mountains, The blue heron, the Shuh-shub-gala, Whose innumerable echoes And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!" Flap like eagles in their eyries; — If still further you should ask me, Listen to these wild traditions, Saying, "Who was Nawadaha? To this Song of Hiawatha! Tell us of this Nawadaha," Ye who love a nation's legends, 42

Love the ballads of a people, From his footprints flowed a river, That like voices from afar off Leaped into the light of morning, Call to us to pause and listen, O'er the precipice plunging downward Speak in tones so plain and childlike, Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet. Scarcely can the ear distinguish And the Spirit, stooping earthward, Whether they are sung or spoken; — With his finger on the meadow Listen to this Indian Legend, Traced a winding pathway for it, Saying to it, "Run in this way!" To this Song of Hiawatha! From the red stone of the quarry

With his hand he broke a fragment, Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, Moulded it into a pipe-head, Who have faith in God and Nature, Shaped and fashioned it with figures; Who believe that in all ages From the margin of the river Every human heart is human, Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, That in even savage bosoms With its dark green leaves upon it; There are longings, yearnings, strivings Filled the pipe with bark of willow; For the good they comprehend not, With the bark of the red willow; That the feeble hands and helpless, Breathed upon the neighboring forest, Groping blindly in the darkness, Made its great boughs chafe together, Touch God's right hand in that darkness Till in flame they burst and kindled; And are lifted up and strengthened; — And erect upon the mountains, Listen to this simple story, Gitche Manito, the mighty, To this Song of Hiawatha! Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, As a signal to the nations. Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, Through the green lanes of the country, Through the tranquil air of morning, First a single line of darkness, Where the tangled barberry-bushes Then a denser, bluer vapor, Hang their tufts of crimson berries Then a snow-white cloud unfolding, Over stone walls gray with mosses, Like the tree-tops of the forest, Pause by some neglected graveyard, Ever rising, rising, rising, For a while to muse, and ponder Till it touched the top of heaven, On a half-effaced inscription, Till it broke against the heaven, Written with little skill of song-craft, And rolled outward all around it. Homely phrases, but each letter Full of hope and yet of heart-break, From the Vale of Tawasentha, Full of all the tender pathos From the Valley of Wyoming, Of the Here and the Hereafter; — From the groves of Tuscaloosa, Stay and read this rude inscription, From the far-off Rocky Mountains, Read this Song of Hiawatha! From the Northern lakes and rivers All the tribes beheld the signal, -114- Saw the distant smoke ascending, I The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe. THE PEACE-PIPE And the Prophets of the nations ON the Mountains of the Prairie, Said: "Behold it, the Pukwana! On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry, By this signal from afar off, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Bending like a wand of willow, He the Master of Life, descending, Waving like a hand that beckons, On the red crags of the quarry Gitche Manito, the mighty, Stood erect, and called the nations, Calls the tribes of men together, Called the tribes of men together. 43

Calls the warriors to his council!" -115- Down the rivers, o'er the prairies, Why then are you not contented? Came the warriors of the nations, Why then will you hunt each other? Came the Delawares and Mohawks, "I am weary of your quarrels, Came the Choetaws and Camanches, Weary of your wars and bloodshed, Came the Shoshonies and Blackfeet, Weary of your prayers for vengeance, Came the Pawnees and Omahas, Of your wranglings and dissensions; Came the Mandans and Dacotahs, All your strength is in your union, Came the Hurons and Ojibways, All your danger is in discord; All the warriors drawn together Therefore be at peace henceforward, By the signal of the Peace-Pipe, And as brothers live together. To the Mountains of the Prairie, To the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry. "I will send a Prophet to you, And they stood there on the meadow, A Deliverer of the nations, With their weapons and their war-gear, Who shall guide you and shall teach Painted like the leaves of Autumn, you, Painted like the sky of morning, Who shall toil and suffer with you. Wildly glaring at each other; If you listen to his counsels, In their faces stern defiance, You will multiply and prosper; In their hearts the feuds of ages, If his warnings pass unheeded, The hereditary hatred, You will fade away and perish! The ancestral thirst of vengeance. "Bathe now in the stream before you, Wash the war-paint from your faces, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Wash the blood-stains from your The creator of the nations, fingers, Looked upon them with compassion, Bury your war-clubs and your With paternal love and pity; weapons, Looked upon their wrath and wrangling Break the red stone from this quarry, But as quarrels among children, Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes, But as feuds and fights of children! Take the reeds that grow beside you, Over them he stretched his right hand, Deck them with your brightest feathers, To subdue their stubborn natures, Smoke the calumet together, To allay their thirst and fever, And as brothers live henceforward!" By the shadow of his right hand; Then upon the ground the warriors Spake to them with voice majestic Threw their cloaks and shirts of deer- As the sound of far-off waters, skin, Falling into deep abysses, Threw their weapons and their war- Warning, chiding, spake in this wise: — gear, "O my children! my poor children! Leaped into the rushing river, Listen to the words of wisdom, Washed the war-paint from their faces. Listen to the words of warning, Clear above them flowed the water, From the lips of the Great Spirit, Clear and limpid from the footprints From the Master of Life, who made you Of the Master of Life descending; "I have given you lands to huntin, Dark below them flowed the water, I have given you streams to fish in, Soiled and stained with streaks of I have given you bear and bison, crimson, I have given you roe and reindeer, As if blood were mingled with it! I have given you brant and beaver, From the river came the warriors, Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl, Clean and washed from all their war- Filled the rivers full of fishes; paint; 44

On the banks their clubs they buried, Decked them with their brightest Buried all their warlike weapons. feathers, Gitche Manito, the mighty, And departed each one homeward, The Great Spirit, the creator, While the Master of Life, ascending, Smiled upon his helpless children! Through the opening of cloud-curtains, And in silence all the warriors Through the doorways of the heaven, Broke the red stone of the quarry, Vanished from before their faces, Smoothed and formed it into Peace- In the smoke that rolled around him, Pipes, The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe! Broke the long reeds by the river, -116-

Just to have fun, see the Disney version of The Song of Hiawatha in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MUuDFeoyvM

3.2. Ralph Waldo Emerson

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo Columbia Encyclopedia Ralph Waldo Emerson (ĕm´ərsən), 1803–82, American poet and essayist, b. Boston. Through his essays, poems, and lectures, the "Sage of Concord" established himself as a leading spokesman of transcendentalism and as a major figure in American literature. Life The writer's father, William Emerson, a descendant of New England clergymen, was minister of the First Unitarian Church in Boston. Emerson's early years were filled with books and a daily routine of studious and frugal home life. After his father's death in 1811, his eccentric but brilliant aunt, Mary Figure 7. Ralph Waldo Emerson Source: http://en.wikipedia.org Moody Emerson, became his confidante and /wiki/File:Ralph_Waldo_Emerson stimulated his independent thinking. At Harvard _ca1857_retouched.jpg (1817–21) he began recording his thoughts in the famous Journal. Poor health hindered his studies at the Harvard divinity school in 1825, and in 1826, after being licensed to preach, he was forced to go south because of incipient tuberculosis. In 1829 he became pastor of the Old North Church in Boston (Second Unitarian). In the 45

same year he married Ellen Tucker, whose death from tuberculosis in 1831 caused him great sorrow. Emerson's personal religious scruples and, in particular, his conviction that the Lord's Supper was not intended by Jesus to be a permanent sacrament led him into conflict with his congregation. In 1832 he retired from his only pastorate. On a trip to Europe at this time he met Carlyle (who became a close friend), Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Through these notable English writers, Emerson's interest in transcendental thought began to blossom. Other strong influences on his philosophy, besides his own Unitarian background, were Plato and the Neoplatonists, the sacred books of the East, the mystical writings of Swedenborg, and the philosophy of Kant. He returned home in 1834, settled in Concord, Mass. And married (1835) his second wife, Lydia Jackson. Work During the early 1830s Emerson began an active career as writer and lecturer. In 1836 he published anonymously his essay Nature, based on his early lectures. It is in that piece that he first set forth the main principles of transcendentalism, expressing a firm belief in the mystical unity of nature. He attracted wide attention with "The American Scholar, "his Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard in 1837, in which he called for independence from European cultural leadership. In his lecture at the Harvard divinity school in 1838, his admonition that one could find redemption only in one's own soul was taken to mean that he repudiated Christianity. This caused such indignation that he was not invited to Harvard again until 1866, when the college granted him an honorary degree. In 1840 Emerson joined with others in publishing The Dial, a magazine intended to promulgate transcendental thought. One of the younger contributors to The Dial was Henry David Thoreau, who lived in the Emerson household from 1841 to 1843 and became Emerson's most famous disciple. The first collection of Emerson's poems appeared in 1847. In spite of his difficulty in writing structurally correct verse, healways regarded himself essentially as a poet. Among his best-known poems are "Threnody," "Brahma," "The Problem," "The Rhodora," and"The Concord Hymn." It was his winter lecture tours, however, which dominated the American lecture circuit in the 1830s and first made Emerson famous among his contemporaries. These lectures received their final form in his series of Essays (1841; second series, 1844). The most notable among them are "The Over-Soul," "Compensation," and 46

"Self-Reliance." From 1845–47 he delivered a series of lectures published as Representative Men (1850). After a second trip to England, in 1847, he gave another series of lectures later published as English Traits (1856). During the 1850s he became strongly interested in abolitionism, and he actively supported war with the South after the attack on Fort Sumter. His late lecture tours are contained in The Conduct of Life (1860) and Society and Solitude (1870). Though his last years were marked by a decline in his mental powers, his literary reputation continued to spread. Probably no writer has so profoundly influenced American thought as Emerson.

If you want to know more about Ralph Waldo Emerson read http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/201. You can also listen to one of his poems in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbcpfyW47y4

Some poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE PROBLEM The conscious stone to beauty grew.

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; Know'st thou what wove yon I love a prophet of the soul; woodbird's nest And on my heart monastic aisles Of leaves, and feathers from her Fall like sweet strains, or, pensive breast? smiles; Or how the fish out built her shell, Yet not for all his faith can see Painting with morn each annual cell? Would I that cowled churchman be. -8- Or how the hatred pine-tree adds Why should the vest on him allure, To her old leaves now myriads? 30 Which I could not on me endure? Such and so grew these holy piles, Not from a vain or shallow thought Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 10 As the best gem upon her zone; Never from lips of cunning fell And Morning epes with haste her lids, The thrilling Delphic oracle; To gaze upon the Pyramids; Out from the heart of nature rolled O'er England's abbeys bends the sky, The burdens of the Bible old; As on its friends, with kindred eye; The litanies of nations came, For, out of Thought's interior sphere Like the volcano's tongue of flame, These wonders rose to upper air; 40 Up from the burning core below, — And Nature gladly gave them place, The canticles of love and woe; Adopted them into her race, The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And granted them an equal date And groined the aisles of Christian With Andes and with Ararat. Rome, 20 Wrought in a sad sincerity; These temples grew as grows the Himself from God he could not free; grass; He builded better than he knew; — Art might obey, but not surpass. 47

The passive Master lent his hand For when love has once departed To the vast soul that o'er him planned; From the eyes of the false-hearted, And the same power that reared the shrine, And one by one has torn off quite Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 50 The bandages of purple light; Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless Though thou wert the loveliest host, Form the soul had ever dressed, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, Thou shalt seem, in each reply, And through the priest the mind A vixen to his altered eye; 20 inspires. Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, Thy praying lute will seem to scold; The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken; Though thou kept the straightest road, The word by seers or sibyls told, Yet thou errest far and broad. In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, -9- But thou shalt do as do the gods Still floats upon the morning wind, In their cloudless periods; Still whispers to the willing mind. 60 -11- One accent of the Holy Ghost For of this lore be thou sure, — The heedless world hath never lost. Though thou forget, the gods, secure, I know what say the fathers wise, — Forget never their command, The Book itself before me lies, But make the statute of this land. 30 Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, As they lead, so follow all, And he who blent both in his line, Ever have done, ever shall. The younger Golden Lips or mines, Warning to the blind and deaf, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. 'T is written on the iron leaf, His words are music in my ear, Who drinks of Cupid's nectar cup I see his cowled portrait dear; 70 Loveth downward, and not up; And yet, for all his faith could see, Therefore, who loves, of gods or men, I would not the good bishop be. Shall not by the same be loved again; His sweetheart's idolatry -10- TO RHEA Falls, in turn, a new degree. 40 When a god is once beguiled THEE, dear friend, a brother soothes, By beauty of a mortal child, Not with flatteries, but truths, And by her radiant youth delighted, Which tarnish not, but purify He is not fooled, but warily knoweth To light which dims the morning's eye. His love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth. — I have come from the spring-woods, 'T is his study and delight From the fragrant solitudes; — To bless that creature day and night; Listen what the poplar-tree From all evils to defend her; And murmuring waters counselled me. If with love thy heart has burned; In her lap to pour all splendour; 50 If thy love is unreturned; 10 To ransack earth for riches rare, Hide thy grief within thy breast, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: Though it tear thee unexpressed; He mixes music with her thoughts,

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And saddens her with heavenly Know, each substance, and relation, doubts: Thorough nature's operation, All grace, all good his great heart Hath its unit, bound, and metre; knows, And every new compound Profuse in love, the king bestows: Is some product and repeater, — Saying, 'Hearken! Earth, Sea, Air! Product of the earlier found. This monument of my despair But the unit of the visit, -12- The encounter of the wise, — 10 Build I to the All-Good, All-Fair, Say, what other metre is it Not for a private good, 60 Than the meeting of the eyes? But I, from my beatitude, Nature poureth into nature Albeit scorned as none was scorned, Through the channels of that feature. Adorn her as was none adorned. Riding on the ray of sight, I make this maiden an ensample Fleeter far than whirlwinds go, To Nature, through her kingdoms Or for service, or delight, ample, Hearts to hearts their meaning show, Whereby to model newer races, Sum their long experience, Statelier forms, and fairer faces; And import intelligence. 20 To carry man to new degrees Of power, and of comeliness. Single look has drained the breast; Single moment years confessed. These presents be the hostages 70 The duration of a glance Which I pawn for my release. Is the term of convenance, See to thyself, O Universe! And, though thy redo be church or Thou art better, and not worse.' — state, And the god, having given all, Frugal multiples of that. Is freed forever from his thrall. -14- -13- Speeding Saturn cannot halt; THE VISIT Linger,—thou shall true the fault; If Love his moment overstay, ASKEST, 'How long thou shalt stay?' Hatred's swift repulsions play. 30 Devastator of the day! -15-

3.3. Edgar Allan Poe

POE, Edgar Allan Columbia Encyclopedia Edgar Allan Poe 1809–49, American poet, short-story writer, and critic, b. Boston. He is acknowledged today as one of the most brilliant and original writers in American literature. His skillfully wrought tales and poems convey with passionate intensity the mysterious, dreamlike, and often macabre forces that pervaded his sensibility. He is also considered the father of the modern detective story.

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Early Life and Works After the death of his parents, both of whom were actors, by the time he was three years old, Poe was taken into the home of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant. The Allans took him to Europe, where he began his education in schools in England and Scotland. Returning to the United States in 1820, he continued his schooling in Richmond and in 1826 entered the Univ. of Virginia. He showed remarkable scholastic ability in classical and romance languages but was forced to leave the Figure 8. Edgar Allan Poe university after only eight months because of quarrels with Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi Allan over his gambling debts. Poverty soon forced him to iki/File:Edgar_Allan_Poe _portrait_B.jpg enlist in the army. Because of the death bed plea of his foster mother, he achieved an unenthusiastic reconciliation with Allan, which resulted in an honorable discharge from the army and an appointment to West Point in 1830. However, when Allan remarried the following year Poe lost all hope of further assistance from him and was expelled from the Academy for infraction of numerous minor rules. Living in a time of frequent economic crisis and depressions, he was to be plagued by poverty throughout his life, a condition that was exacerbated by his chronic alcoholism. His first book, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published in 1827. It was followed by two more volumes of verse in 1829 and 1831. None of these early collections attracted critical or popular recognition. Poe went to Baltimore to live with his aunt, Mrs. Maria Clemm, and her daughter Virginia. In 1835, J. P. Kennedy helped him become an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. He contributed stories, poems, and astute literary criticism, but his drinking cost him the editorship. Later Life and Mature Works In 1836 Poe married Virginia Clemm, then only 13, and in 1837 they went to New York City, where he published The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), his only novel. From 1838 to 1844, Poe lived in Philadelphia, where he edited Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (1839–40) and Graham's Magazine (1841–42). His criticism, which appeared in these magazines and in the Messenger, was keen, direct, incisive, and sometimes savage, and it made him a respected and feared critic. Some of his magazine stories were collected as Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840). At 50

that time he also began writing the mystery tales that earned him the title "father of the modern detective story." In 1844, Poe moved back to New York, where he worked on the Evening Mirror and later edited and owned the Broadway Journal. The Raven and Other Poems (1845) won him fame as a poet both at home and abroad. In 1846 he moved to the Fordham cottage (now a museum) and there wrote "The Literati of New York City" for Godey's Lady's Book. His wife died in 1847, and by the following year Poe was courting the poet Sarah Helen Whitman. However, in 1849 he returned to Richmond and became engaged to Elmira Royster, a childhood sweetheart who was by then the widowed Mrs. Shelton. On his way north to bring Mrs. Clemm to the wedding, he became involved in a drinking debauch in Baltimore. This indulgence proved fatal, for he died a few days later. Assessment Poe's literary executor, R. W. Griswold, overemphasized Poe's personal faults and distorted his letters. Poe was a complex person, tormented and alcoholic yet also considerate and humorous, a good friend, and an affectionate husband. Indeed, his painful life, his neurotic attraction to intense beauty, violent horror, and death, and his sense of the world of dreams contributed to his greatness as a writer. Such compelling stories as "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" involve the reader in a universe that is at once beautiful and grotesque, real and fantastic. His poems (including "To Helen," "The Raven," "The City in the Sea," "The Bells," and "Annabel Lee") are rich with musical phrases and sensuous, at times frightening, images. Poe was also an intelligent and witty critic who often theorized about the art of writing. The analytical mind he brought to criticism is evident also in his famous stories of ratiocination, notably "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter." Poe influenced such diverse authors as Swinburne, Tennyson, Dostoyevsky, Conan Doyle, and the French symbolists.

Some poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee And this maiden she lived with no other thought It was many and many a year ago, Than to love and be loved by me. In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you I was a child and she was a child, may know In this kingdom by the sea: By the name of ANNABEL LEE; 51

But we loved with a love that was more A Valentine than love-- I and my ANNABEL LEE; For her this rhyme is penned, whose With a love that the winged seraphs of luminous eyes, heaven Brightly expressive as the twins of Coveted her and me. Leda, Shall find her own sweet name, that, And this was the reason that, long ago, nestling lies In this kingdom by the sea, Upon the page, enwrapped from every A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling reader. My beautiful ANNABEL LEE; Search narrowly the lines!--they hold a So that her highborn kinsmen came treasure And bore her away from me, Divine--a talisman--an amulet To shut her up in a sepulchre That must be worn _at heart_. Search In this kingdom by the sea. well the measure-- The words--the syllables! Do not forget The angels, not half so happy in The trivialest point, or you may lose heaven, your labor! Went envying her and me-- And yet there is in this no Gordian knot Yes!--that was the reason (as all men Which one might not undo without a know, sabre, In this kingdom by the sea) If one could merely comprehend the That the wind came out of the cloud by plot. night, Enwritten upon the leaf where now are Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE. peering Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus But our love it was stronger by far than Three eloquent words oft uttered in the the love hearing Of those who were older than we-- Of poets by poets--as the name is a Of many far wiser than we-- poet's, too. And neither the angels in heaven Its letters, although naturally lying above, Like the knight Pinto--Mendez Nor the demons down under the sea, Ferdinando-- Can ever dissever my soul from the Still form a synonym for Truth--Cease soul trying! Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE. You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams To my Mother Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; And the stars never rise but I see the Because I feel that, in the Heavens bright eyes above, Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE; The angels, whispering to one another, And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by Can find, among their burning terms of the side love, Of my darling, my darling, my life and None so devotional as that of "Mother," my bride, Therefore by that dear name I long In her sepulchre there by the sea-- have called you-- In her tomb by the side of the sea. You who are more than mother unto me, 52

And fill my heart of hearts, where Are mother to the one I loved so Death installed you, dearly, In setting my Virginia's spirit free. And thus are dearer than the mother I My mother--my own mother, who died knew early, By that infinity with which my wife Was but the mother of myself; but you Was dearer to my soul than its soul- life.

To know more about Edgar Allan Poe, visit: http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php You can also listen to some readings of some of his most famous poems in http://ric.libguides.com/content.php?pid=62331&sid=612776

4. American Civil War

The War between the States American Experience

The American Civil War (1861 - 1865) was one of the most violent times in the History of the United States. Many books have been written on all aspects of the Civil War. More than 600,000 men gave their lives for their country in this war. This is more lives lost in one war than in all wars and conflicts combined following this period in time. 1. On the Eve of War – Historical Context By 1850 the United States had already begun the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. In the cities and mill towns of the North, hundreds of thousands of Americans worked to produce everything from shoes and textiles to railroad engines, guns, and iron. In 1825 the Erie Canal had forged an important trade and travel link between the North and West. Railroads began to grow explosively, reinforcing this link. In the mid-1830s less than 500 miles of railroad track were in service nationwide. By 1840, that number had risen to 2,808. And by 1850, 9,021 miles of track carried farm crops and raw materials eastward from the plains, and settlers and finished goods West. 1.1. The North In the North, great mill towns had begun to rise. Work that had been done on a small scale by craftspeople in homes or small shops was now being done in huge mills, driven by water power and even by steam engines.

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1.2. The South During the 19th century cotton replaced tobacco as the South’s most important cash crop. The textile mills of New England and Europe provided a steady market for cotton. And with plenty of fertile land available in the Southwest, the cotton industry boomed. But the rise of King Cotton came at the expense of human lives. In 1850 more than half of the people in the South were enslaved. 1.3. The Midwest By 1850 American farmers had begun to move beyond the Ohio Valley to settle on the rich lands further west. Linked to the East by the Great Lakes and the Erie Canal, these Western lands were already becoming an important agricultural area, providing food for people in Eastern cities. 1.4. The West The discovery of rich gold deposits in California in 1849 caused an unprecedented stampede westward. Across the East, young men packed up their belongings and headed for the gold fields. The Gold Rush would speed the settlement of the West and establish California as one of the most potentially valuable states in America. 1.5. Immigrants The Gold Rush drew “49ers” from across the Pacific as well as from the East Coast. In 1852, 67,000 immigrants arrived in California. Some 20,000 of them came from China. Asian Americans appeared in U.S. Census statistics for the first time in 1860. The nationwide population of Asian American men and women was listed as 34,933, and all of them lived in California. Asians weren’t the only California immigrants. Miners came from England and France, Mexico and Chile, Hawaii and Australia. Enslaved and free African Americans arrived from the East, along with thousands of U.S. citizens. Soon California became one of the most culturally diverse places in the world. 1.6. Native Americans The Native American population of California in 1850 has been estimated at about 100,000. But the influx of miners would decimate these peoples, just as the influx of settlers had decimated Indian populations in the East. Mining activities disrupted traditional hunting and foraging practices, so many Native Americans died of starvation. Disease killed others. Indian children were sometimes kidnapped and sold into slavery. Often, miners considered Native Americans savages and murdered 54

them. By 1870, according to one estimate, the Native American population of California had been reduced by half. 1.7. Californios By 1850, about 200 Californio families — Spanish-speaking people who had come to California from Spain or Mexico — owned some 14 million acres of land in California. Most made their living raising cattle and selling hides and tallow, animal fat used to make soap. But when the Gold Rush began, Californios’ hold on the land would slip away. California had become a part of the United States in 1848, at the end of the Mexican War. At that time, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo guaranteed Californios land rights. But in practice, this portion of the treaty would not be enforced. Miners who wanted land simply took it from the Californios, often by violent means. Others cheated Californios out of their land or contested their property ownership in court. After years of legal battles, many Californios were too poor to fight anymore, and most lost their land. 1.8. Wage Slavery In the decade between 1846 and 1855, more than 3 million immigrants came to the United States, with a vast majority of them settling in the free states of the North. By 1855, foreign-born residents were becoming a majority group; immigrants approached or exceeeded half the total population of several Northern cities. The new Americans arriving in this burst of immigration were nothing like those who had come before. Before 1840, three-quarters of all immigrants had been Protestants. Most were single men from the British Isles. Of those, a fifth became unskilled laborers or servants, and the remainder worked as farmers, skilled workers, or in professional occupations. But in the two decades after 1840, the typical immigrant’s profile would radically change. More than half of all immigrants in these years were Catholics. Two-thirds were from Ireland, with the remainder from German-speaking countries. And the percentage of them who worked as unskilled laborers doubled. The growing industrial economy of the North swallowed these new workers into its factories, employing them for long hours at low wages. These manufacturing jobs were repetitious and sometimes hazardous. And from their meager earnings, Northern laborers had to pay for every one of life’s necessities. 55

For some Southerners, the situation of Northern workers looked a lot worse than slavery. In fact, they argued, unlike the “wage slavery” of the North, the slavery system in the South provided food, clothing, medical care, and leisure to slaves, caring for them throughout their lives. Prominent defenders of slavery, including George Fitzhugh, based their pro-slavery attitudes on a racist assessment of African Americans as inferior to whites. On top of its fundamentally racist outlook, this Southern justification of slavery ignored the central issue of self-determination: Northern workers could make their own choices, leaving their jobs or possibly heading West to the frontier, while slaves could not. 1.9. Technology Gallery A wave of new technologies brought about sweeping changes in the nation’s economy. From agricultural devices like the cotton gin and the mechanical reaper to communication improvements like steamboats and the telegraph, these innovations changed the way Americans worked, traveled, and communicated. New tools even altered the way Americans lived and died; the efficient Sharps rifle was invented just two years after the first successful use of anesthesia in a Boston surgical theater.

“To Light Us to Freedom and Glory Again”: The Role of Civil War Poetry

Library of Congress Poetry Resources

During the Civil War, thousands of poems about the conflict were written by everyday citizens. These poems appeared in a variety of print formats, including newspapers, periodicals, broadsheets, and song sheets. Drawing upon the Library of Congress' online collections, this page offers a selection of poetry written by soldiers and citizens from the North and the South. These poems enable us to better understand the role of poetry during the war years and how poetry helped unify citizens, inspire troops, memorialize the dead, and bind the nation's wounds in the aftermath of the war.

Would you like to know more about the American Civil War? Read: http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/. You can also see some of the films listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_Civil_War_films

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4.1. Ambrose Bierce

BIERCE, Ambrose Gwinett

Columbia Encyclopedia

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (ăm´brōz gwĬnĕt´ bĬrs), 1842–1914?, American satirist, journalist, and short-story writer, b. Meigs co., Ohio. He fought with extreme bravery in the Civil War, and the conflict, which he considered meaningless slaughter, is reflected in his war stories and to a great extent in the deep pessimism of his late fiction. After the war, he turned to journalism. In San Francisco he wrote for the News-Letter, becoming its Figure 9. Ambrose Bierce. editor in 1868. He soon established a reputation as a Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ satirical wit, and his squibs and epigrams were much File:Ambrose_Bierce-1.jpg quoted. In London (1872–75), he wrote for the magazine Fun and finished three books, including Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874). After his return to San Francisco, he wrote for the Argonaut, edited the Wasp (1881–86), and was a columnist for Hearst's Sunday Examiner (1887–96); his writings in the Examiner made him the literary arbiter of the West Coast. Later he was Washington correspondent for the American and a contributor to Cosmopolitan. Bierce's famous collection of sardonic definitions, originally called The Cynic's Word Book (1906), was retitled The Devil's Dictionary in 1911. His short stories, often dark in tone, grisly or macabre in subject matter, and masterful in their spare language, were collected in such volumes as Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891) and Can Such Things Be? (1893). He was also highly praised for The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter (1892), which he adapted from a translation of a German story. Bierce's distinction lies in his distilled satire, in the crisp precision of his astringent language, and in his realistically developed horror stories. Disillusionment and sadness pervaded the latter part of his life. In 1913 he went to Mexico, where all trace of him was lost.

If you want to read more about Ambrose Bierce, go to: http://donswaim.com/ 57

Some of Ambrose Bierce poems

To a Dejected Poet Sing songs of the pride of the Thy gift, if that it be of God, mountains, Thou hast no warrant to appraise, And songs of the strength of the seas, Nor say: "Here part, O Muse, our ways, And the fountains that fall to the seas The road too stony to be trod." From the hands of the hills, and the fountains Not thine to call the labor hard That shine in the temples of trees, And the reward inadequate. In valleys of roses and bees. Who haggles o'er his hire with Fate Is better bargainer than bard. Sing songs that are dreamy and tender, What! count the effort labor lost Of slender Arabian palms, When thy good angel holds the reed? And shadows that circle the palms, It were a sorry thing indeed Where caravans out of the splendor To stay him till thy palm be crossed. Are kneeling in blossoms and balms In islands of infinite calms. "The laborer is worthy"—nay, -4- The sacred ministry of song Barbaric, O Man, was thy tuning Is rapture!—'twere a grievous wrong When mountains were stained as with To fix a wages-rate for play. wine Humility By the dawning of Time, and as wine Were the seas, yet its echoes are Great poets fire the world with fagots crooning big Achant in the gusty pine That make a crackling racket, And the pulse of the poet's line. But I'm content with but a whispering twig TEMPORA MUTANTUR To warm some single jacket. -3- "The world is dull," I cried in my GEOTHEOS despair: "Its myths and fables are no longer fair. As sweet as the look of a lover Saluting the eyes of a maid "Roll back thy centuries, O Father That blossom to blue as the maid Time: Is ablush to the glances above her, To Greece transport me in her golden The sunshine is gilding the glade prime. And lifting the lark out of shade. "Give back the beautiful old gods Sing therefore high praises, and again— therefore The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad's Sing songs that are ancient as gold, jocund train, Of earth in her garments of gold; "Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades, Nor ask of their meaning, nor The Sirens singing by the sleepy seas. wherefore They charm as of yore, for behold! "Nay, show me but a Gorgon and I'll The Earth is as fair as of old. dare 58

To lift mine eyes to her peculiar hair The girls had aged and were entirely "(The fatal horrors of her snaky pate, bald! That stiffen men into a stony state) "And die—becoming, as my spirit flies, CREATION A noble statue of myself, life size." God dreamed—the suns sprang Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of flaming into place, Fate: And sailing worlds with many a "Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters venturous race! wait." He woke—His smile alone illumined -5- space. Lifting my eyes, I saw Medusa stand, -6- Stheno, Euryale, on either hand. I gazed unpetrified and unappalled—

4.2. William Cullen Bryant

BRYANT, William Cullen Columbia Encyclopedia

William Cullen Bryant (brī´ənt), 1794–1878, American poet and newspaper editor, b. Cummington, Mass. The son of a learned and highly respected physician, Bryant was exposed to English poetry in his father's vast library. As a boy he became devoted to the New England countryside and was a keen observer of nature. In his early poems such as "Thanatopsis," "To a Waterfowl," "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and "The Yellow Violet," all written before he was 21, he celebrated the majesty of nature in a style that was influenced by the English romantics but also reflected a personal simplicity and dignity. Admitted to the bar in 1815 after a year at Williams and private study, Bryant practiced Figure 10. William Cullen Bryant law in Great Barrington, Mass., until 1825, when he went to Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki New York City. By that time he was already known as a poet /File:William_Cullen_Brya nt_Cabinet_Card_by_Mor and critic. He became associate editor of the New York a-crop.jpg Evening Post in 1826, and from 1829 to his death he was part owner and editor in chief. An industrious and forthright editor of a highly literate paper, he was a defender of human rights and an advocate of free trade, abolition of slavery, and other reforms. He also holds an important place in literature as the earliest American theorist of poetry. In his Lectures on Poetry (delivered 1825; published 1884) 59

and other critical essays he stressed the values of simplicity, original imagination, and morality. During his later career Bryant traveled widely, made many public speeches, and continued to write a few poems (e.g., "The Death of the Flowers," "To the Fringed Gentian," and "The Battle-Field"). His blank verse translation of the Iliad appeared in 1870, that of the Odyssey in 1872.

Poems by William Cullen Bryant Along the springing grass had run, SEVENTY-SIX. And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain. What heroes from the woodland sprung, That death-stain on the vernal sward When, through the fresh-awakened Hallowed to freedom all the shore; land, In fragments fell the yoke abhorred— The thrilling cry of freedom rung, The footstep of a foreign lord And to the work of warfare strung Profaned the soil no more. The yeoman's iron hand! -167- -166- THE LIVING LOST. Hills flung the cry to hills around, And ocean-mart replied to mart, Matron! the children of whose love, And streams, whose springs were yet Each to his grave, in youth have unfound, passed; Pealed far away the startling sound And now the mould is heaped above Into the forest's heart. The dearest and the last! Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil Then marched the brave from rocky Before the wedding flowers are pale! steep, Ye deem the human heart endures From mountain-river swift and cold; No deeper, bitterer grief than yours. The borders of the stormy deep, The vales where gathered waters Yet there are pangs of keener woe, sleep, Of which the sufferers never speak, Sent up the strong and bold,— Nor to the world's cold pity show As if the very earth again The tears that scald the cheek, Grew quick with God's creating breath, Wrung from their eyelids by the shame And, from the sods of grove and glen, And guilt of those they shrink to name, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men Whom once they loved with cheerful To battle to the death. will, And love, though fallen and branded, The wife, whose babe first smiled that still. day, Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead, The fair fond bride of yester eve, Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve, And aged sire and matron gray, And reverenced are the tears they Saw the loved warriors haste away, shed, And deemed it sin to grieve. And honored ye who grieve. The praise of those who sleep in earth, Already had the strife begun; The pleasant memory of their worth, Already blood, on Concord's plain, The hope to meet when life is past, 60

Shall heal the tortured mind at last. Grief for your sake is scorn for them Whom ye lament and all condemn; But ye, who for the living lost And o'er the world of spirits lies That agony in secret bear, A gloom from which ye turn your eyes. Who shall with soothing words accost -168- The strength of your despair?

If you want to know more about William Cullen Bryant, read: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-cullen-bryant.

4.3. Walt Whitman

WHITMAN, Walt

Columbia Encyclopedia

Walt Whitman (Walter Whitman), 1819–92, American poet, b. West Hills, N.Y. Considered by many to be the greatest of all American poets, Walt Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy and the brotherhood of man. His Leaves of Grass, unconventional in both content and technique, is probably the most influential volume of poems in the history of American literature.

Early Life Figure 11. Walt Whitman Whitman left school in 1830, worked as a printer's de Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik vil and later as a compositor. In1838–39 he taught school i/File:Walt_Whitman_- _Project_Gutenberg_eTe on Long Island and edited the Long Islander newspaper. xt_16786.jpg By 1841 he had become a full-time journalist, editing successively several papers and writing prose and verse for New York and Brooklyn journals. His active interest in politics during this period led to the editorship of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, a Democratic party paper; he lost this job, however, because of his vehement advocacy of abolition and the "free-soil" movement. After a brief trip to New Orleans in 1848, Whitman returned to Brooklyn, continued as a journalist, and later worked as a carpenter.

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Leaves of Grass In 1855 Whitman published at his own expense a volume of 12 poems, Leaves of Grass, which he had begun working on probably as early as 1847. Prefaced by a statement of his theories of poetry, the volume included the poem later known as "Song of Myself," in which the author proclaims himself the symbolic representative of common people. Although the book was a commercial failure, critical reviewers recognized the appearance of a bold new voice in poetry. Two larger editions appeared in 1856 and1860, and they had equally little public success. Leaves of Grass was criticized because of Whitman's exaltation of the body and sexual love and also because of its innovation in verse form—that it, the use of free verse in long rhythmical lines with a natural, "organic" structure. Emerson was one of the few intellectuals to praise Whitman's work, writing him a famous congratulatory letter. Whitman continued to enlarge and revise further editions of Leaves of Grass; the last edition prepared under his supervision appeared in 1892. Later Life and Works From 1862 to 1865 Whitman worked as a volunteer hospital nurse in Washington. Hispoetry of the Civil War, Drum-Taps (1865), reissued with Sequel to Drum Taps (1865–66), included his two poems about Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," considered one of the finest elegies in the English language, and the much-recited "O Captain! My Captain!" For a while Whitman served as a clerk in the Dept. of the Interior, but he was discharged because Leaves of Grass was considered an immoral book. In 1873 Whitman suffered a paralytic stroke and afterward lived in a semi- invalid state. His prose collection Democratic Vistas had appeared in 1871, and his last long poem, "Passage to India," was published in the 1871 edition of Leaves of Grass. From 1884 until his death he lived in Camden, N.J., where he continued to write and to revise his earlier work. His last book, November Boughs, appeared in 1888. Assessment Whitman was a complex person. He saw himself as the full-blooded, rough-and- ready spokesman for a young democracy, and he cultivated a bearded, shaggy appearance. Indeed, Whitman's early biographers John Burroughs and R. M. Bucke were so affected by the robust "I" of Whitman's poems and by the poet himself that they depicted him as a rowdy, sensual man, a great lover of women, and the father of 62

several illegitimate children. Most of this was false. In reality Whitman was a quiet, gentle, circumspect man, robust in youth but sickly in middle age, who sired no children and is generally acknowledged to have been homosexual. Whitman had an incalculable effect on later poets, inspiring them to experiment in prosody as well as in subject matter.

Some poems of Walt Whitman

A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM

A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket, Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand, Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just lift the blanket; Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes? Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step--and who are you my child and darling? Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third--a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory; Young man I think I know you--I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! 63

It is some dream that on the deck, You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

I HEAR AMERICA SINGING

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Read all of Walt Whitman’s poems in http://www.bartleby.com/people/WhitmnW.html. Also enjoy listening to Song of Myself and other poems in http://archive.org/details/WaltWhitman- SongOfMyselfAndOtherPoems

4.4. Emily Dickinson

DICKINSON, Emily

Columbia Encyclopedia

Emily Dickinson 1830–86, American poet, b. Amherst, Mass. She is widely considered one of the greatest poets in American literature. Her unique, gemlike lyrics are distillations of profound feeling and original intellect that stand outside the mainstream of 19th-centuryAmerican literature. 64

Life Dickinson spent almost all her life in her birthplace. Her father was a prominent lawyer who was active in civic affairs. His three children (Emily; a son, Austin; and another daughter, Lavinia) thus had the opportunity to meet many distinguished visitors. Emily Dickinson attended Amherst Academy irregularly for six years and Mount Holyoke Seminary for one, and in those years lived a normal life filled with friendships, parties, church, and housekeeping. Before she was 30, however, she began to withdraw from village activities and Figure 12. Emily Dickinson. gradually ceased to leave home at all. While she Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Em corresponded with many friends, she eventually ily_Dickinson_daguerreotype.jpg stopped seeing them. She often fled from visitors and eventually lived as a virtual recluse in her father's house. As a mature woman, she was intense and sensitive and was exhausted by emotional contact with others. Even before her withdrawal from the world Dickinson had been writing poetry, and her creative peak seems to have been reached in the period from 1858 to 1862. She was encouraged by the critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her chosen reader and an advocate who may never have fully comprehended her genius but who, through their considerable correspondence, helped make her aware of events in the world beyond Amherst, and by Helen Hunt Jackson, who believed she was a great poet. Nonetheless, Dickinson published only seven poems during her lifetime. Her mode of existence, although circumscribed, was evidently satisfying, even essential, to her. After her death in 1886, Lavinia Dickinson discovered over 1,000 poems in her sister's bureau. For too long Dickinson was treated less as a serious artist than as a romantic figure who had renounced the world after a disappointment in love. This legend, based on conjecture, distortion, and even fabrication, has plagued even some of her modern biographers. Works While Dickinson wrote love poetry that indicates a strong attachment, it has proved impossible to know the object of her feelings, or even how much was fed by her poetic imagination. The chief tension in her work comes from a different source: 65

her inability to accept the orthodox religious faith of her day and her longing for its spiritual comfort. Immortality she called "the flood subject," and she alternated confident statements of belief with lyrics of despairing uncertainty that were both reverent and rebellious. Her verse, noted for its aphoristic style, its wit, its delicate metrical variation and irregular rhymes, its directness of statement, and its bold and startling imagery, has won enormous acclaim and had a great influence on 20th- century poetry. Dickinson's posthumous fame began when Mabel Loomis Todd and Higginson edited and published two volumes of poems (1890, 1891) and some of her correspondence (2vol., 1894). Other editions of verse followed, many of which were marred by unskillful and unnecessary editing. A definitive edition of her works did not appear until the 1950s, when T. H. Johnson published her poems (3 vol., 1955) and letters (3 vol., 1958); only then was serious study of her work possible. Dickinson scholarship was further advanced by R. W. Franklin's variorum edition of her poetry (3 vol., 1998).

Some poems by Emily Dickinson

I’M NOBODY And Immortality.

I'm nobody! Who are you? We slowly drove, he knew no haste, Are you nobody, too? And I had put away Then there 's a pair of us -- don't tell! My labor, and my leisure too, They 'd banish us, you know. For his civility.

How dreary to be somebody! We passed the school where children How public, like a frog played, To tell your name the livelong day Their lessons scarcely done; To an admiring bog! We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. LOVE IS ANTERIOR TO LIFE We paused before a house that Love is anterior to life, seemed Posterior to death, A swelling of the ground; Initial of creation, and The roof was scarcely visible, The exponent of breath. The cornice but a mound.

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR Since then 't is centuries; but each DEATH Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Because I could not stop for Death, Were toward eternity. He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves A WORD IS DEAD 66

I say it just A word is dead Begins to live When it is said, That day. Some say.

You can read all of Emily Dickinson’s poems in http://www.bartleby.com/113/, or listen to some of her poems in http://www.shmoop.com/emily-dickinson/video- audio.html

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REFERENCES

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BARBOSA, Maria do Socorro Baptista Barbosa. “American Romanticism”. In. The Pocahontas Narratives in the Era of the Romantic Representations of the Native Americans and their Influence on the construction of an American National Identity. Florianópolis: UFSC, 2005 (Tese de Doutorado não publicada)

BUELL, Lawrence. “The American Transcendentalist Poets”. In. Parini, Jay; Millier, Brett C., eds. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

CLARK, Harry Hayden, ed. Major American Poets. New York: American Book Company, 1936.

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson. London: Humphrey Milford; Oxford University Press, 1921.

GRENANDER, M. E., ed. Poems of Ambrose Bierce. Lincoln, NE.: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

INGRAM, John H., ed. The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10031/pg10031.txt. Access in: December 27th, 2012.

JOHNSON, Thomas H., ed. Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson’s Poems. Boston; Toronto. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1961.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS POETRY RESOURCES. “To Light Us to Freedom and Glory Again”: The Role of Civil War Poetry. Available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/ program/bib/lcpoetry/cwvc.html Access in November 23rd, 2012.

LONGFELLOW, Henry Wadsworth. The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1893.

MASON JR., Julian D., ed. The Poems of Phillis Wheatley. Chapel Hill, NC.: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

MILLER, Perry, ed. The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956.

MURDOCK, Kenneth B. “The Puritan Literary Attitude”. In. WALLER, George M. Puritanism in Early America. Boston:: D. C. Heath, 1950, p. 89-98. 68

MURPHY, Francis. “Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor”. In. Parini, Jay; Millier, Brett C., eds. The Columbia History of American Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, p. 1-2.

RALSTON, Shane J. “American Enlightenment Thought”. In. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/amer-enl/. Access in: October 30th, 2012.

THE COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. © 2012 The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia © 2012.

WHITMAN, Walt. The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman. Garden City; New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache /epub/27494/pg27494.txt Access in: October, 30th, 2012.